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GR: Fachverband Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie

GR 304: Quantengravitation

GR 304.1: Talk

Wednesday, March 7, 2007, 17:15–17:30, KIP Kl. HS

Quantum Cosmological models with Big Brake singularity — •Barbara Sandhoefer¹ and Alexander Kamenshchik² — ¹Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität zu Köln, Zülpicher Str.77, 50937 Köln, Germany — ²Dipartimento di Fisica and INFN, Via Irnerio 46, 40126 Bologna, Itlay

We study the behavior of quantum cosmological models with singularities at large scale factor. Here, we focus on a cosmological model which, on the classical level, exhibits a new type of singularity, a so-called Big Brake singularity. Upon approaching this singularity, the scale factor freezes at large value, whereas its second derivative becomes infinitely negative. The Big Brake singularity thus constitutes an example of a weak cosmological singularity. We calculate the classical trajectories in configuration space and give solutions to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation in quantum cosmology. All solutions vanish at the singularity. Thus, this weak singularity is avoided upon quantization.