From big bang to big crunch and beyond

Shmuel Elitzur*, Amit Giveon, David Kutasov, Eliezer Rabinovici

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

89 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study a quotient Conformal Field Theory, which describes a 3 + 1 dimensional cosmological spacetime. Part of this spacetime is the Nappi-Witten (NW) universe, which starts at a "big bang" singularity, expands and then contracts to a "big crunch" singularity at a finite time. The gauged WZW model contains a number of copies of the NW spacetime, with each copy connected to the preceeding one and to the next one at the respective big bang/big crunch singularities. The sequence of NW spacetimes is further connected at the singularities to a series of non-compact static regions with closed timelike curves. These regions contain boundaries, on which the observables of the theory live. This suggests a holographic interpretation of the physics.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)313-343
Number of pages31
JournalJournal of High Energy Physics
Volume6
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jun 2002

Keywords

  • AdS-CFT and dS-CFT Correspondence
  • Conformal Field Models in String Theory

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