Description:

I will describe how cosmic correlations provide a window into the early universe, and how we are working to understand these correlations in a new way. The large-scale correlations that we observe in the distribution of matter in the universe have their origins in primordial perturbations produced prior to the hot big bang—likely during a period of inflationary expansion. Interestingly we do not directly observe the inflationary epoch, but instead infer its dynamics from correlations residing on the late time boundary of the inflationary spacetime where the universe reheats. This motivates us to ask whether we can understand things directly on this asymptotic boundary, without making explicit reference to bulk time evolution. I will describe recent progress in this direction.

Speaker: Austin Joyce, Assistant Professor, University of Chicago

Host: JJ Carracso