Speaker
ROBERT Brandenberger
(McGill University)
Description
Cosmological inflation has become the standard paradigm of
early universe cosmology. I will argue that this scenario, at least
when described at the level of an effective field theory, suffers
from serious conceptual problems. In light of these problems, I will
discuss a new and more consistent approach to early universe scenario
based on a proposed non-perturbative definition of
superstring theory (the BFSS matrix model). I will indicate how
a continuous, infinite and spatially flat space can emerge from
this starting point, and discuss specific predictions for cosmological
observables.