Related papers: Wavefunction of the Universe on the Landscape
We study some gravitational instanton solutions that offer a natural realization of the spontaneous creation of inflationary universes in the brane world context in string theory. Decoherence due to couplings of higher (perturbative) modes…
Observational tests during the next decade may determine if the evolution of the Universe can be understood from fundamental physical principles, or if special initial conditions, coincidences, and new, untestable physical laws must be…
Quantum state wave functionals are constructed in exact form for the graviton-like field theory obtained by breaking down the topological symmetry of the string action related with the Euler characteristic of the world-surface; their…
Modern cosmology poses deep and unavoidable questions for fundamental physics. In this plenary talk, delivered in slightly different forms at the {\it Particles and Nuclei International Conference} (PANIC05) in Santa Fe, in October 2005,…
This paper presents a new technique to calculate the evolution of a quantum wavefunction in a chosen spatial basis by minimizing the accumulated action. Introduction of a finite temporal basis reduces the problem to a set of linear…
The possibility to detect cosmic strings -- topological defects of early Universe, by means of wave effects in gravitational lensing is discussed. To find the optimal observation conditions, we define the hyperbolic-shaped Fresnel…
It is speculated that the correct theory of fundamental physics includes a large landscape of states, which can be described as a potential which is a function of N scalar fields and some number of discrete variables. The properties of such…
These lectures provide an updated pedagogical treatment of the theoretical structure and phenomenology of some basic mechanisms for inflation, along with an overview of the structure of cosmological uplifts of holographic duality. A full…
Based on a number of experimentally verified physical observations, it is argued that the standard principles of quantum mechanics should be applied to the Universe as a whole. Thus, a paradigm is proposed in which the entire Universe is…
Quantum state diffusion shows how stochastic interaction with the environment may cause localisation of the wave-function, and thereby demonstrates that quantum mechanics need not invoke a separate axiom of measurement to explain the…
In what has become a standard eternal inflation picture of the string landscape there are many problematic consequences and a difficulty defining probabilities for the occurrence of each type of universe. One feature in particular that…
We consider the evolution of a 4D-universe embedded in a five-dimensional (bulk) world with a large extra dimension and a cosmological constant. The cosmology in 5D possesses "wave-like" character in the sense that the metric coefficients…
We briefly review three aspects of string cosmology: (1) the ``stochastic'' approach to the pre-big bang scenario, (2) the presence of chaos in the generic cosmological solutions of the tree-level low-energy effective actions coming out of…
This is a short account, based on a talk given at the 2024 Moriond Cosmology Conference, of where and why string theory matters in early universe cosmology. It is written for a cosmology audience predisposed to be at best sceptical, and at…
The wave function was proposed for description of quantum phenomena on the atomic level. But now it is well known that quantum phenomena are observed not only on atomic level and the wave function is used for description of macroscopic…
The ontological status of the quantum wavefunction remains one of the most debated questions in quantum theory. While epistemic interpretations regard the wavefunction as a reflection of our knowledge or beliefs, ontic interpretations treat…
Condensed account of the Lectures delivered at the Meeting on {\it Noncommutative Geometry in Field and String Theory}, Corfu, September 18 - 20, 2005.
Focus of these lectures is the challenge of explaining the origin of structure in the Universe. The interplay between quantum field theory and classical general relativity has given rise to several interesting cosmological models which…
We discuss recent developments in the study of quantum wavefunctions and transport in classically ergodic systems. Surprisingly, short-time classical dynamics leaves permanent imprints on long-time and stationary quantum behavior, which are…
We show that if a cosmic string exists, it may be identified through characteristic diffraction pattern in the energy spectrum of the observed signal. In particular, if the string is on the line of sight, the wave field is shown to fit the…