HET- seminar: Alice Di Tucci

Speaker: Alice Di Tucci

Title: Path integrals and boundary conditions in quantum cosmology

Abstract: In this talk I will discuss the impact of various boundary conditions on the minisuperspace gravitational path integral. In this framework it is possible to go one step beyond the usual treatment of primordial fluctuations according to QFT in curved spacetime as the background universe can been given quantum mechanical properties too. I will argue that inflation is incomplete in explaining the origin of primordial perturbations and that the ‘No boundary proposal’, which was introduced by Hartle and Hawking as a theory of initial conditions for inflation, can be formulated as a path integral with boundary conditions of Robin type.