de Sitter Space Field Theory and Inflationary Cosmology (Physics)

如果你观察宇宙中最大的结构，你会发现我们的“邻居”，也就是我们银河系附近的空间区域，与宇宙中其他地方的类似大小的区域非常相似。事实上，我们的宇宙似乎在各个方向上都大同小异。1965年发现的大爆炸留下的非常冷的辐射分享了这一特性。要以一种与爱因斯坦相对论一致的方式解释这一事实是非常困难的，这迫使宇宙学家考虑一种关于宇宙起源的新理论。在这一理论中，宇宙在很短的时间内“膨胀”并迅速增大。这个项目将调查这样一个阶段在什么条件下符合量子力学定律，量子力学定律是在非常微小的长度尺度上管理物质的定律。它还将寻求更好地理解引力子，即传递引力的类似光的粒子，是如何在这样的膨胀阶段产生的，以及它们如何影响大爆炸遗留下来的冷辐射的外观。

If one looks at the biggest structures in the universe, one discovers that our "neighborhood", the region of space near our galaxy, is remarkably similar to other regions of similar size, located elsewhere in the universe. In fact our universe appears to be very much the same in all directions. This property is shared by the very cold radiation, discovered in 1965, which was left behind by the big-bang. To explain this fact in a way that is consistent with Einstein's theory of relativity is very difficult, and has forced cosmologists to consider a new theory of how the universe began. In this theory the universe "inflates" and grows very rapidly in size during a very short period of time. This project shall investigate under what conditions such a stage is consistent with the laws of quantum mechanics, which are the laws that govern matter at very tiny length scales. It shall also seek to understand better how gravitons, the light-like particles that transmit gravitational forces, are produced during such an inflationary stage, and how they could affect the appearance of the cold radiation left over from the big-bang.