Loop Quantum Gravity and the The Planck Regime of Cosmology

Understand

The very early universe provides the best arena we currently have to test quantum gravity theories.

• The success of the inflationary paradigm in accounting for the observed inhomogeneities in the cosmic microwave background already illustrates this point to a certain extent because the paradigm is based on quantum field theory on the curved cosmological space-times.
• However, this analysis excludes the Planck era because the background space-time satisfies Einstein's equations all the way back to the big bang singularity.
• Using techniques from loop quantum gravity, the paradigm has now been extended to a self-consistent theory from the Planck regime to the onset of inflation, covering some 11 orders of magnitude in curvature.