Fundamental Physics and Cosmology

基础物理学和宇宙学

• 批准号: 1518742
• 负责人: Alexander Vilenkin
• 金额: $ 40.5万
• 依托单位: Tufts University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-15 至 2018-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1518742&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Fundamental; Physics; Cosmology

This award funds the research activities of Professor Vilenkin at Tufts University.The theory of cosmic inflation, which was proposed as a speculative hypothesis 35 years ago, has by now accumulated substantial observational support and has become the leading cosmological paradigm. This theory has also led to a major change in our global view of the universe. According to the new worldview, much of the volume in the universe is in the state of explosive inflationary expansion. We live in a "bubble" where inflation has ended, but it will never end in the entire universe. The total volume of inflating regions continues to grow, and other bubbles with diverse properties are constantly being formed. The major goal of the proposed research is to learn how this "multiverse" scenario can be tested observationally and to investigate its implications for the beginning of the universe. The multiverse worldview has far-reaching implications beyond physics. It provides a dramatically new perspective on the global structure of the universe and on our place in it. Research in this area thus advances the national interest by promoting the progress of science in one of its most fundamental directions: the understanding of the properties of the universe. Professor Vilenkin will also involve graduate students and postdocs in his research, and thereby provide critical training for junior physicists beginning research in this field. He will continue his efforts to communicate the ideas of modern cosmology to the general public, in the form of public lectures, popular articles, and interviews for radio and TV. He will also write a textbook, emphasizing the new worldview, based on his undergraduate cosmology course, which is aimed at students with no preparation in science.More technically, Professor Vilenkin will investigate the possibility of a direct test of the multiverse scenario by observing collisions of our bubble with other bubbles, or with topological defects that could nucleate in the inflating background. Possible observational effects of such collisions will be studied using both analytic and numerical methods. A complementary approach is to analyze the statistical properties of the multiverse and use them to derive predictions for the observed values of the constants of Nature in our bubble. This approach will be pursued, with the main focus on the statistics of different states in the multiverse and of the transition rates between them. The general problem of making predictions in the multiverse, known as the measure problem, will also be addressed.

该奖项资助塔夫茨大学Vilenkin教授的研究活动。宇宙膨胀理论在35年前作为推测性假设提出，到目前为止已经积累了大量的观测支持，并已成为领先的宇宙学范式。 这一理论也导致了我们对宇宙的全球看法的重大变化。 根据新的世界观，宇宙中的大部分体积都处于爆炸性的暴胀膨胀状态。我们生活在一个“泡沫”中，通货膨胀已经结束，但它永远不会在整个宇宙中结束。膨胀区域的总体积继续增长，并且不断形成具有不同性质的其他泡沫。 拟议研究的主要目标是了解如何通过观测来测试这种“多元宇宙”场景，并调查其对宇宙起源的影响。多元宇宙的世界观具有超越物理学的深远影响。它提供了一个关于宇宙的全球结构和我们在其中的位置的全新视角，因此，这一领域的研究通过促进科学在其最基本方向之一-对宇宙性质的理解-的进步，促进了国家利益。 Vilenkin教授还将让研究生和博士后参与他的研究，从而为开始在这一领域研究的初级物理学家提供关键培训。 他将继续努力，通过公开讲座、通俗文章、广播电视访谈等形式，向公众传播现代宇宙学的思想。 他还将编写一本教科书，强调新的世界观，基于他的本科宇宙学课程，这是针对学生没有科学准备。更技术，教授Vilenkin将调查的可能性，通过观察我们的泡沫与其他泡沫的碰撞，或与拓扑缺陷，可能在膨胀的背景下成核的多重宇宙的情况下直接测试。 将使用分析和数值方法研究这种碰撞可能产生的观测效应。 一个补充的方法是分析多元宇宙的统计特性，并利用它们来预测我们的泡泡中自然常数的观测值。 这种方法将继续下去，主要侧重于多元宇宙中不同状态的统计数据以及它们之间的转换率。 在多元宇宙中进行预测的一般问题，称为测量问题，也将得到解决。