U.S.-Switzerland Cooperative Research on Issues in Gravitation and Cosmology

该奖项支持由布朗大学Robert H. Brandenberger教授领导的三位美国研究人员及其研究生与瑞士联邦理工学院（ETH）和苏黎世大学的Christoph Schmid教授等人在理论物理方面进行合作。这些研究小组代表了卓越的研究中心，他们对理解早期宇宙的物理学有着共同的兴趣。参与者在粒子物理学、场论、天体物理学和宇宙学方面带来互补的专业知识。拟议项目的附带目标是使美国和瑞士的初级参与者能够通过国际合作拓宽他们的知识视野。联合研究将集中在三个共同感兴趣的课题上：1)宇宙学微扰理论在引力和宇宙学中的应用；2)熵参量在宇宙相变理论中的应用；3)非奇异宇宙的构造。这项研究解决了关于早期宇宙物理学的几个有趣的问题。参与者之间不同背景和观点的结合增加了研究对提高对宇宙大尺度结构形成的理解的潜在贡献。宇宙学的这个领域现在特别有趣，因为最近和计划中的卫星观测测量了宇宙微波背景的各向异性以及星系团，超星系团以及星系的壁和空洞。这些观察结果可以提供评估和改进模型的方法，并以其他方式推进美国和瑞士合作者的研究。＊＊＊

9312335 Brandenberger This award supports a group of three U.S. researchers and their graduate students, led by Professor Robert H. Brandenberger of Brown University, to collaborate in theoretical physics with Professor Christoph Schmid and others of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and the University of Zurich. These research groups represent centers of excellence that share an interest in understanding the physics of the very early universe. The participants bring complementary expertise in particle physics, field theory, astrophysics, and cosmology to the cooperative effort. A collateral goal of the proposed project is to enable the junior U.S. and Swiss participants to broaden their intellectual horizons through international collaboration. The joint research will focus on three topics of mutual interest: 1) applications of the theory of cosmological perturbations to gravitation and cosmology; 2) application of entropy arguments to the theory of cosmological phase transitions; and 3) construction of a nonsingular universe. This research addresses several intriguing questions about the physics of the early universe. The combinations of different backgrounds and perspectives among the participants increases the potential contribution of the research toward improved understanding of the formation of large scale structures in the universe. This area of cosmology is particularly interesting now because of recent and planned satellite observations that measure anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background and the clusters, superclusters and the walls and voids of galaxies. These observations may provide means of evaluating and refining the models and otherwise advancing the research of the U.S. and Swiss collaborators. ***