Related papers: The Challenging Cosmic Singularity
This lecture surveys a few loosely related topics, ranging from the scarcity of quantum field theories -- and the role that this has played, and still plays, in physics -- to paradoxes involving black holes in soluble two dimensional string…
We study cosmic strings in the complex symmetron model, a scalar-tensor theory with a spontaneously broken local $U(1)$ symmetry in low matter density regions. Using numerical simulations, we show that these strings preferentially attach to…
We study time-dependent backgrounds in the low energy regimes of string theories. In particular the emphasis is on the general study of exotic phenomena such as positive acceleration and gravitational bounces. We generalize the usual…
We explore the consequences of requiring that quantum theories of gravity be unitary, mostly focusing on simple cosmological models to illustrate the main points. We show that unitarity for a clock that encounters a classical singularity at…
We describe a new tunneling solution for the decay of a cosmic string into a burst of gravitational waves. We find the relevant instanton and compute the tunneling rate. Locally, our solution is just an analytic continuation of the Kerr…
In spite of its great phenomenological success, current models of scalar field-driven inflation suffer from important unresolved conceptual issues. New fundamental physics will be required to address these questions. String theory is a…
We consider the propagation of classical and quantum strings on cosmological space-times which interpolate from a collapsing phase to an expanding phase. We begin by considering the classical propagation of strings on space-times with…
We derive a class of solutions to the string sigma-model equations for the closed bosonic string. The tachyon field is taken to form a constant condensate and the beta-function equations at one-loop level are solved for the evolution of the…
This talk considers possible lessons of string theory for low energy physics. These are of two types. First, assuming that string theory is the correct underlying theory of all interactions, we ask whether there are any generic predictions…
After a brief review of the standard definition and analysis of classical singularities in general relativistic spacetimes, and of quantum singularities in static spacetimes with timelike classical singularities, an extension of quantum…
We present here a brief review and discussion on recent developments in the theory of spacetime singularities. After mentioning some key motivations on the main ideas and concepts involved, we take the approach that the singularities will…
In this review, a number of approaches to superstring cosmology which make use of key features which distinguish string theory from point particle theories are discussed, with particular emphasis on emergent scenarios. One motivation for…
We evaluate the physical viability and logical strength of an array of putative criteria for big bang singularity resolution in quantum cosmology. Based on this analysis, we propose a mutually consistent set of constitutive conditions,…
In this paper we present well-posedness results of the wave equation in $H^{1}$ for spacetimes that contain string-like singularities. These results extend a framework able to characterise gravitational singularities as obstruction to the…
The spacetime singularity in relativistic cosmology is cancelled by using an additional variable. That is, the singularity-free models for an expanding universe are obtained from general relativity.
String theory is at the moment the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. But, in spite of the more than thirty years of its existence, it does not make any empirically testable predictions, and it…
We construct two new classes of exact solutions to string theory which are not of the standard plane wave or gauged WZW type. Many of these solutions have curvature singularities. The first class includes the fundamental string solution,…
The loop quantum cosmology of the Bianchi type II string cosmological model in the presence of a homogeneous magnetic field is studied. We present the effective equations which provide modifications to the classical equations of motion due…
A large class of cosmological solutions (of the Einstein equations) in string theory, in the presence of Maxwell fields, is obtained by $O(d,d)$ transformations of simple backgrounds with $d$ toroidal isometries. In all the examples in…
The quantum theory of a spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe with a massless scalar field as source is further investigated. The classical model is singular, and in the framework of the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner canonical…