2024/12/03 by Amaury Micheli, Micheli, Amaury · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2412.02444
openalex publication_date 2024/12/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This thesis is dedicated to analysing the generation and destruction of quantum correlations in the context of inflationary cosmology and an experiment of 'analogue' preheating. Inflation is a phase of accelerated expansion of the Universe, preceding the so-called Standard Model of Big Bang cosmology, introduced to solve some shortcomings of this model. It also provides a mechanism for the emergence of primordial inhomogeneities by amplification of initial quantum fluctuations. Inflation is followed by a 'reheating' period, in which most particles are expected to be generated and reach thermal equilibrium, setting the stage for the standard Big Bang of cosmology. During a 'preheating' period, this creation proceeds partly by parametric excitation of resonant modes of the matter fields initially in their vacuum, a genuine quantum process. The physics of both situations, inflation and preheating, is that of a strong classical field acting on a quantum field to produce entangled (quasi-)particles. When the classical source is the space-time metric itself, as in inflation, we are in the framework of Quantum Field Theory in Curved Space-time (QFTCS). The evolution of the generated quantum correlations is the topic of this PhD.