Related papers: The Inverted Big-Bang
The expansion of our universe, when followed backward in time, implies that it emerged from a phase of huge density, the big bang. These stages are so extreme that classical general relativity combined with matter theories is not able to…
General relativity predicts a singularity in the beginning of the universe being called big bang. Recent developments in loop quantum cosmology avoid the singularity and the big bang is replaced by a big bounce. A classical theory of…
An interesting idea is that the universe could be spontaneously created from nothing, but no rigorous proof has been given. In this paper, we present such a proof based on the analytic solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation (WDWE).…
This short review is addressed to cosmologists. General relativity predicts that space-time comes to an end and physics comes to a halt at the big-bang. Recent developments in loop quantum cosmology have shown that these predictions cannot…
Loop Quantum Gravity is a background independent, nonperturbative approach to the quantization of General Relativity. Its application to models of interest in cosmology and astrophysics, known as Loop Quantum Cosmology, has led to new and…
Loop quantum gravity is believed to eliminate singularities such as the big bang and big crunch singularity. This belief is based on studies of so-called loop quantum cosmology which concerns symmetry-reduced models of quantum gravity. In…
Quantum gravity, as a fundamental theory of space-time, is expected to reveal how the universe may have started, perhaps during or before an inflationary epoch. It may then leave a potentially observable (but probably minuscule) trace in…
Quantum gravity has matured over the last decade to a theory which can tell in a precise and explicit way how cosmological singularities of general relativity are removed. A branch of the universe "before" the classical big bang is obtained…
We propose that at the beginning of the universe gravity existed in a limbo either because it was switched off or because it was only conformally coupled to all particles. This picture can be reverse-engineered from the requirement that the…
Production of gravitational vacuum defects and their contribution to the energy density of our Universe are discussed. These topological microstructures (defects) could be produced in the result of creation of the Universe from "nothing"…
There is general agreement that the universe began with an "explosion" of matter and energy at a "singularity", the "Big Bang". This paper analyses the mechanics of that beginning and two alternative theories related to it: - The…
The gravitational collapse and the birth of a new universe are considered in terms of quantum mechanics. Transitions from annihilation of matter to deflation in the collapse and from inflation to creation of matter in the birth of a…
Alternative scenarios to the Big Bang singularity have been subject of intense research for several decades by now. Most popular in this sense have been frameworks were such singularity is replaced by a bounce around some minimal…
Quantum effects are expected to modify the cosmological dynamics of the early universe while maintaining some (potentially discrete) notion of space-time structure. In one approach, loop quantum cosmology, current models are shown here to…
A fascinating and deep question about nature is what one would see if one could probe space and time at smaller and smaller distances. Already the 19th-century founders of modern geometry contemplated the possibility that a piece of empty…
There is a common expectation that the big-bang singularity must be resolved in quantum gravity but it is not clear how this can be achieved. A major obstacle here is the difficulty of interpreting wave-functions in quantum gravity. The…
We propose a picture, within the pre-big-bang approach, in which the universe emerges from a bath of plane gravitational and dilatonic waves. The waves interact gravitationally breaking the exact plane symmetry and lead generically to…
The primordial Universe can be used as a laboratory to set constraints on quantum gravity. In the framework of Loop Quantum Cosmology, we show that such a proposal for quantum gravity not only solves for the big bang singularity issue but…
The big bang singularity could be understood as a breakdown of Einstein's General Relativity at very high energies. Adopting this viewpoint, other theories, that implement Einstein Cosmology at high energies, might solve the problem of the…
The production of gravitational vacuum defects and their contribution in energy density of the Universe are discussed. These topological microstructures could be produced as the result of defect creation of the Universe from "nothing" as…