Related papers: As time goes by
The discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating in time is a major discovery which still awaits adequate explanation. It is generally agreed that this implies a cosmic repulsion as a result of the existence of a…
This paper makes the simple observation that a fundamental length, or cutoff, in the context of Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmology implies very different things than for a static universe. It is argued that it is…
There are two important examples of physical systems which violate the strong energy condition : Universes (like, it would seem, our own) with a positive cosmological constant, and wormholes. We suggest that a positive cosmological constant…
In a previous paper (Ref. [1]) the presence of dark energy in our universe was explained as the fingerprint of a comprehensive, much older and expanding multiverse with positive spatial curvature, whose space-time is spanned by this energy,…
The outcome of a single quantum experiment is unpredictable, except in a pure-state limit. The definite process that takes place in the apparatus may either be intrinsically random or be explainable from a deeper theory. While the first…
I briefly summarize a recent research program aiming to probe the landscape of low-energy phases of string theory from a global perspective. Borrowing conceptual lessons from the swampland program, I will discuss how the effective theories…
Three of the big puzzles of theoretical physics are the following: (i) There is apparently no time evolution in the dynamics of quantum general relativity, because the allowed quantum states must obey the Hamiltonian constraint. (ii) During…
Presently there is preliminary observational evidence that the cosmological constant might be non zero, and hence that our Universe is eternally accelerating (de Sitter). This poses fundamental problems for string theory, since a scattering…
In this paper we study the description of the Universe based on the low energy superstring theory modified by the Loop Quantum Gravity effects.This approach was proposed by De Risi et al. in the Phys. Rev. D {\bf 76} (2007) 103531. We show…
The inherent difficulty in talking about quantum decoherence in the context of quantum cosmology is that decoherence requires subsystems, and cosmology is the study of the whole Universe. Consistent histories gave a possible answer to this…
Cosmic strings are linear concentrations of energy that form whenever phase transitions in the early universe break axial symmetries as originally shown by Kibble. They are the result of frustrated order in the quantum fields responsible…
In this work we review at an elementary level the origin, main ideas and present status of the so called holographic principle. This principle, even in the absence of a precise formulation, is seen by many people as a major clue for the…
We describe a scenario for inflation in the framework of non-critical string theory, which does not employ an inflaton field. There is an exponential expansion of the volume of the Universe, induced by enormous entropy production in the…
We develop a cosmological theory in which the evolution of the universe is controlled by the cosmological constant and dominated by the associated vacuum energy. The universe starts as a classical de Sitter space with an infinite effective…
Combining intervals of ekpyrotic (ultra-slow) contraction with a (non-singular) classical bounce naturally leads to a novel cyclic theory of the universe in which the Hubble parameter, energy density and temperature oscillate periodically,…
Some issues of the cosmological constant or dark energy are briefly reviewed. There are an increasing number of observations that constrain the equation of state of dark energy more stringently and favor the time-independent cosmological…
This letter explores how a reinterpretation of the generalized uncertainty principle as an effective variation of Planck's constant provides a physical explanation for a number of fundamental quantities and couplings. In this context, a…
In the context of the new standard LambdaCDM cosmology we resolve conflicts in the literature regarding fundamental aspects of the expansion of the universe and cosmic horizons and we link these concepts to observational tests. We derive…
We recall a classical theory of torsion gravity with an asymmetric metric, sourced by a Nambu-Goto + Kalb-Ramond string . We explain why this is a significant gravitational theory, and in what sense classical general relativity is an…
We investigate some classical aspects of fundamental strings via numerical experiments. In particular, we study the thermodynamics of a string network within a toroidal universe, as a function of string energy density and space…