Strange Work in Strange Places: Quantum Field Theory in Curved Space

Abstract

Astronomers seem to be observing the fossilized remnants of quantum gravitational processes which took place during the epoch of {\it primordial inflation} that is conjectured to have occurred during the first $10^{-32}$ seconds of cosmic history. We give a non-technical description of what causes these processes and how they become preserved to survive to the current epoch. We also discuss some of the secondary effects which should result.

48 pages, 10 figures, uses PDFLaTeX, English version of a popular science article for a Chinese-language book celebrating the 100th anniversary of General Relativity, prepared by members of the Gravitation Society of Taiwan, edited by Hoi-Lai Yu

References in corpus (6)

• A Joint Analysis of BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck Data
• Stochastic Inflationary Scalar Electrodynamics
• Two loop stress-energy tensor for inflationary scalar electrodynamics
• Excitation of Photons by Inflationary Gravitons
• The Quantum-Corrected Fermion Mode Function during Inflation
• Quantum gravity corrections to the conformally coupled scalar self-mass-squared on de Sitter background