QUANTUM COSMOLOGY WILL NEED TO BECOME A NUMERICAL SUBJECT

Abstract

The inhomogeneous fluctuations that underlie structure formation – galaxies and CMB hot spots – might have been seeded by quantum cosmological fluctuations, as magnified by some inflationary mechanism. The Halliwell–Hawking model for these, as a lower-energy semiclassical limit, is expected to be shared by many theories. E.g. an O((H/mpl)2) suppression of power at large scales results from this. This model contains/suppresses very many terms; we want a qualitative understanding of the meaning of these terms and of different regimes resulting from different combinations of them. I study this with toy models that have tractable mathematics: minisuperspace and, especially, relational particle mechanics. In the present Seminar, I consider in particular averaged terms with some lessons from Hartree–Fock approach to Atomic and Molecular Physics. One needs to anchor this on variational principles; treating the subsequent equations is a numerical venture