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SUMMARY:Constraining Inflation with Numerical Relativity  - Panos Giannada
 kis\, Queen Mary University of London
DTSTART:20250613T120000Z
DTEND:20250613T130000Z
UID:TALK229978@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Xi Tong
DESCRIPTION:Cosmic inflation is the leading paradigm for describing the ea
 rly universe\, addressing fundamental issues such as the horizon and flatn
 ess problems. However\, a key unresolved question is the nature of its ini
 tial conditions. In this talk\, I will discuss how numerical relativity he
 lps studying inflationary spacetimes with inhomogeneous initial conditions
 \, particularly in the presence of strong gravitational effects from large
  inhomogeneities. Numerical simulations allow us to map out the phase spac
 e of initial conditions that lead to sufficient duration of slow roll infl
 ation versus those that do not. The results strongly depend on the inflati
 onary model\, with a rule of thumb that the models with near- or super-Pla
 nckian characteristic scales are more robust to matter and geometric inhom
 ogeneities than those with sub-Planckian scales. We mainly focus on the st
 udy of α-attractor models and our simulation results allow us to find a l
 ower bound on the tensor-to-scalar ratio r.
LOCATION:Potter room/Zoom
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