The Cosmological Bootstrap and the Analytic Wavefunction

Abstract

Inflation is the leading paradigm for explaining the origin of primordial fluctuations which seeds the creation of galaxies. These primordial fluctuations are encoded in a cosmological wavefunction. In this talk the speaker will discuss how to compute the wavefunction using the cosmological bootstrap, which is a series of constraints from fundamental physical principles. These include unitarity, which results in the cosmological optical theorem, as well as locality, which results in the manifest locality test. The speaker will then show how these principles can be used to establish no go theorems for parity odd interactions. In the end, the speaker will talk about the analytic wavefunction, where we attempt to follow in the S-matrix program and write down dispersion relations for the wavefunction. This paves the way to establishing positivity bounds for cosmology and linking observables in cosmology to fundamental principles.

About the Speaker

Mr Gordon Mang Hei LEE is currently a final year PhD student in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge. His research interest lies in early universe cosmology and its connection to high energy physics, as well as effective field theories for gravitational theories.

About the Program

For more information, please refer to the program website at http://iasprogram.ust.hk/particle_theory.

For Attendees' Attention

• Seating is on a first come, first served basis.