1:00–1:30 pm ERC 576
Cole Meldorf “Three and Four Dimensional Geometric Analyses of Causal Regions During Inflation”
Supervisor: Prof. Craig Hogan
This thesis expands upon the work done in Hogan & Meyer (2022) concerning the theory that the symmetries underlying quantum entanglement of inflationary horizons may explain certain suggestive regions of the correlation function of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropies. We seek to create higher dimensional, interactive versions of figures explaining this theory as a pedagogical tool for the understanding of this complicated subject. Using an accompanying python notebook to this paper, we explain some important predictions of this theory using our higher dimensional figures. In particular, we replicate the geometric arrangement of intersecting spherical horizons from Hogan & Meyer (2022) as well as adding the null geodesics of photons traversing them. We explore this system in three and four dimensions in order to demonstrate results such as that in the π < θ < 3π/4 region C(θ) = 0. In the appendix, we derive the null geodesics in an exponentially inflating spacetime used in the creation of these figures. These predicted values of the CMB correlation function using this theory seem to agree more strongly with the real world data than standard inflation theories; as such this thesis hopes to make this theory more accessible for further study.