Joint cosmology seminar at Tufts:

Tuesday, April 2, 2024, 2:30 pm
574 Boston Ave, Room 402\\
Tufts University
Refreshments at 2:00 outside room 304

String Theory and the First Half of the Universe

Fien Apers
Oxford

Abstract:

I will describe a stringy exotic epoch in the early universe that connects the end of inflation to the start of the standard radiation dominated epoch. Rolling scalar fields play a crucial role in this epoch that could last as long as half the lifetime of the universe on a logarithmic scale. As the energy scales at the endpoints of this epoch can be largely different, there is a possibility of traversing multiple transplanckian distances and perhaps producing quantum gravity signatures