Conformal invariance and microscopic sensitivity in cosmic inflation

Aalst, T.A.F. van der

Persistent URL of this record https://hdl.handle.net/1887/20327

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Aalst, T.A.F. van der (2012)

Conformal invariance and microscopic sensitivity in cosmic inflation

Doctoral Thesis

Phenomenologically, cosmic inflation is a satisfying and well-tested description of the physics of the very early universe. During this epoch, the universe was dominated by high energy phenomena that can only be truly understood in a quantum gravity theory such as string theory. In this thesis we show that the embedding of inflation in a string theoretic framework is very sensitive to the details of the theory. We consider both the low energy supergravity limit as well as a worldsheet set-up. Moreover, we investigate the constraints imposed by supersymmetry and conformal symmetry. Conformal symmetry is important both in the worldsheet theory as well as in a holographic description of inflation. In the latter case we investigate the imprints of conformal invariance on the (observable) statistical correlations in the cosmic microwave background radiation.

string theory and cosmology

inflation