Looking back in time beyond the big bang
Abstract
String theory can (in principle) describe gravity at all curvature scales, and can be applied to cosmology to look back in time beyond the Planck epoch. The duality symmetries of string theory suggest a cosmological picture in which the imprint of a primordial, pre-big bang phase could still be accessible to present observations. The predictive power of such a scenario relies, however, on our ability to connect in a smooth way the pre-big bang to the present cosmological regime. Classical radiation back reaction seems to play a key role to this purpose, by isotropizing and turning into a final expansion any state of anisotropic contraction possibly emerging from the pre-big bang at the string scale.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.gr-qc/9905062,
title = {Looking back in time beyond the big bang},
author = {M. Gasperini},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/9905062},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
11 pages, Latex, four figures included using epsfig. Essay written for the 1999 Awards of the Gravity Research Foundation (Wellesley Hills, Ma, 02481-0004), and selected for Honorable Mention. To appear in Mod. Phys. Lett. A