String Theory Seminars

Resolution of Cosmological Singularities in Higher Spin Gravity

by Dr. Shubho Roy (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore)

Monday, September 15, 2014 from to (Asia/Kolkata)
Description
Resolution of cosmological singularities is an important problem in
any full theory of quantum gravity. Three dimensional de Sitter space
has quotients that have big-bang/big-crunch singularities, while the
Milne orbifold is a quotient of flat space (cosmology) with a
big-bang/big-crunch singularity. Using the Chern-Simons formulation of
higher spin gravity in 2+1 d de Sitter and flat space we show that
higher spin theories can effect a simple resolution of the
cosmological singularities when one embeds them in 2+1 dimensions.