Anna Ijjas, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and Institute for Theory and Computation, Harvard University

"Smoothing, entropy, and the new cyclic universe"

Abstract: I will discuss the detailed process by which slow contraction smooths and flattens the universe using an advanced numerical relativity code that accepts initial conditions with large non-perturbative deviations from homogeneity and isotropy. I will also show how slow contraction embedded in a novel cyclic picture sheds new light on the cosmological entropy problem and discuss our recent proposal to evade it.