Cosmology

Big question

Air- and space-borne telescopes have started to provide high precision data on the earliest stages of the universe. What information can be extracted about the laws of quantum gravity that governed the big bang?

Basic idea

I implemented key features (the generalized uncertainty relations) of my information-theoretic approach to quantum gravity in the present standard theory for the early universe, cosmic inflation. The work of several groups indicates that it will be very difficult but not impossible to use data from space-based telescopes (such as the recently-launched Planck satellite) to test some theory-specific predictions about the big bang, e.g., concerning the tensor mode spectrum in the CMB. Work with my former student Robert Martin is in progress on a fully relativistic generalization.

Selected publications

• S. Bachmann, A. Kempf, On the Casimir Effect with General Dispersion Relations, J. Phys. A41, 164021 (2008)
• A. Kempf, L. Lorenz, Exact solution of inflationary model with minimum length, Phys. Rev. D74, 103517 (2006)