Theoretical Cosmology meetings
To actively encourage the field of theoretical cosmology and to set an informal stage for the exchange of ideas, the Dutch theoretical cosmology community organizes Friday afternoon meetings approximately 6 times a year — usually on the first Friday of the month. The meetings typically start in the afternoon with a main speaker, followed by a short break to continue with another seminar or journal club discussion on some topic of current interest. We end the afternoon with drinks. The supporting institutes in Leiden, Amsterdam, Groningen, Utrecht where recently joined by the strings and cosmology group in Leuven and take turns in hosting the event.
- This event has passed.
Amsterdam Spring 2019
07/06/2019 @ 13:30 - 17:00
Amsterdam, June 7th. The meeting will take place at Nikhef, Science Park 105, 1098 XG Amsterdam, room H331.
Program
13:30 – 14:30: Talk by David Weir (Nottingham University)
Title:Vorticity, kinetic energy, and suppressed gravitational wave production in strong first order phase transitions
Abstract:
In the Standard Model, electroweak symmetry breaking is a crossover. In many extensions, the phase transition can be of first order – even strongly so. The resulting phase transition can then be a substantial source of gravitational waves. For a phase transition at or around the electroweak scale, these gravitational waves may be detectable by future or planned missions, such as LISA. This can indirectly provide a probe of particle physics beyond the Standard Model, complementary to future colliders. In this talk I will discuss the physics that will make this possible and present some new simulation results for strong phase transitions, showing that vorticity is generated during the phase transition and substantial reheating can occur in front of the bubbles. This slows them down and, in certain cases, can suppress the generation of gravitational waves from the phase transition.
14:30 – 15:00: Coffee
15:00 – 16:00: Talk by Lars Aalsma(UvA)
Title: De Sitter Space in the Unruh State
Abstract:
In this talk, I will discuss some recent work done in collaboration with Maulik Parikh and Jan Pieter van der Schaar in which we constructed a new quantum state for de Sitter space: the Unruh-de Sitter state. This state is the analogue of the Unruh state describing an evaporating black hole. I will show how to construct this state and calculate the stress tensor in an explicit two-dimensional example. After generalizing the computation to four dimensions I will analyze backreaction and show that de Sitter space exhibits a quantum instability in the Unruh state. Finally, I will comment on the possible implications of these results on (inflationary) cosmology.
16:00 – 17:00: Talk by Jorinde Van De Vis (Nikhef)
Title: An effective approach to electroweak baryogenesis
Abstract: