Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The goal of this work is to obtain a better understanding of the quantum gravity physics of black holes and of the early universe. Among many important open questions in quantum gravity, a few stand out. For black holes, it has been argued that the thermal nature of Hawking radiation leads to the loss of the information about the matter that initially formed the black hole, and it is widely expected that a theory of quantum gravity is needed to resolve the information loss problem. For the early universe, quantum gravity seems required to understand the initial state of the universe, while detailed observations of the cosmic microwave background, a faint afterglow of the early universe, offers one of the few but important opportunities to confront the predictions of quantum gravity to observations. To obtain a better understanding of these physical processes, I will work on two main projects. The first project is to study black hole collapse models in quantum gravity, with Hawking radiation, in a non-perturbative quantum framework that will include backreaction effects. This will hopefully give new insights into the black hole information loss problem and possibly suggest a resolution. The second project is to continue work on developing a complete framework for cosmological perturbation theory in full quantum gravity. This will offer a direct connection between quantum gravity and observations, as well as open a window into the physics of perturbations at scales comparable to the Planck length. A complete description of black holes and the early universe requires quantum gravity. The goal of this work is to contribute to the task of understanding this physics through concrete calculations addressing two key open questions in the field. The results of these calculations will deepen our understanding of black hole and cosmology physics, and will hopefully suggest promising new directions for future research.