Two-day Focus Meeting on "Quantum Entanglement in Cosmology"
Dates: May 21 (Tue) -22 (Wed), 2019
Place: Lecture Hall, Kavli IPMU, the University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan
Agenda:
Quantum entanglement is perhaps the most mysterious aspect of quantum physics. It is a feature of the possible states of a quantum system which in its extreme form allows one to know everything about a pair of quantum systems taken together, yet nothing about each one individually. This is very different from the way the classical world operates, and thus runs counter to our everyday intuition.
Somewhat paradoxically, quantum entanglement is understood to have an important role in physics that allows the classical world to emerge from an underlying fundamental quantum picture, despite not being directly evident in our classical experiences. The lack of everyday intuition about and experience with quantum entanglement makes it challenging to fully explore the role of quantum entanglement in the physical world. No doubt partly because of these challenges, such explorations are intellectually very exciting and seem to hold a great deal of promise for attaining fundamental insights as well as practical applications. To do so one must transcend one's everyday classical intuition and identify situations where the full quantum nature of physics is relevant.
The field of cosmology presents important opportunities to make such explorations. Our modern understanding of the cosmos includes many processes which are deeply rooted in the full quantum nature of matter and forces. For example the predominant theory of the very early universe, cosmic inflation, defines a process where the entire observed universe is created from the vacuum state of the quantum fields. Symmetry breaking cosmic phase transitions can proceed through the formation of bubbles from quantum tunneling processes. Black holes deeply probe the quantum nature of gravity. And the probabilities for different overall cosmic scenarios to occur are assigned by the quantum "wavefunction of the universe".
The workshop is aimed to bring together a small group of experts on theses inherently quantum cosmological phenomena to advance these topics forward, with a particular eye toward the role of quantum entanglement in the cosmos.
Organizers:
Andy Albrecht(UCD), Sugumi Kanno(Osaka), Misao Sasaki(IPMU)
Invited participants:
Jerome Martin(IAP), Yasunori Nomura(UCB), Andrew Arrasmith (UCD), + ...
------------------
This workshop is jointly sponsored by KAKENHI Grant Nos. 15K21733 "Accelerated Universe",
15H05888 "Inflation" (subgroup A01), and 15H05895 "Ultimate Theory" (subgroup C01).
We have some but limited financial resources to support participants.
Please contact Misao Sasaki <misao.sasaki@ipmu.jp> for inquiries.
Address:
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), the University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwa-no-ha, Kashiwa City, Chiba 277-8583, Japan
This workshop is supported in part by
