Speaker
Robert Brandenberger
(McGill University)
Description
I will argue that we need to go beyond an effective field theory description of physics if we want to understand the evolution of the very early universe. Superstring theory is the prime candidate for a fundamental theory of all forces. I will show how to obtain emergent metric space-time from matrix theory, a suggested non-perturbative definition of string theory. Thermal fluctuations in this matrix model yield cosmological perturbations in the resulting early universe scenario which leave specific imprints in cosmological observables.
