Theoretical Cosmology meeting

01Mar2019 13:00 - 17:00


Speakers: Kyohei Mukaida (DESY) and John Stout (UvA). Location: Utrecht


13:00 - 14:00 Coffee/tea 

14:00 - 15:30 Kyohei Mukaida (DESY)Primordial black holes from inflation and their implications 

15:30 - 17:00 John Stout (UvA) Instantons away from equilibrium

17:00 - end Snacks/drinks in ITP coffee room, 7th floor, Buys Ballot Building.



Abstract: Primordial black holes (PBHs) are one of the candidates to constitute the whole dark matter. Recently, they have been gathering additional attention because they can explain the observed gravitational waves (GWs) detected by LIGO. In this talk, I assume that PBHs are generated from inflation, and discuss observational probes specific to PBHs from inflation. After that, I also discuss classes of inflation models that could be an origin of PBHs for all DM or LIGO GWs while evading the current constraints.

John Stout (UvA) Instantons away from equilibrium

Abstract: Non-perturbatively generated effective potentials play an extremely useful, often critical, role in string and inflationary model building. These potentials are typically computed by Euclidean methods (i.e. instantons) which assume the system is in equilibrium. For systems out of equilibrium---for instance, an inflaton rolling down its potential--- we expect there are corrections to the semi-classical evolution due to transient phenomena. How do we determine these corrections, and when do they become large? I will introduce a picture of non-perturbative effects that does not rely on the Euclidean path integral and answer these questions for a wide class of toy quantum mechanical models.


Institute for Theoretical Physics Utrecht, Buys Ballot Building, Princetonplein 5, Utrecht, seminar room 7.12

Local organiser

Tomislav Prokopec


These meetings occur (roughly) every month and are hosted by universities across the Netherlands, gathering the local cosmology community. Some of these talks might be of interest also for string and the Amsterdam GRAPPA groups, so we encourage you to subscribe to the THC mailing list:

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source: THC@NL

Published by  D-ITP