Giovanni Montani - Böcker

Primordial Cosmology deals with one of the most puzzling and fascinating topics debated in modern physics — the nature of the Big Bang singularity. The authors provide a self-consistent and complete treatment of the very early Universe dynamics, passing through a concise discussion of the Standard Cosmological Model, a precise characterization of the role played by the theory of inflation, up to a detailed analysis of the anisotropic and inhomogeneous cosmological models. The most peculiar feature of this book is its uniqueness in treating advanced topics of quantum cosmology with a well-traced link to more canonical and pedagogical notions of fundamental cosmology.This book traces clearly the backward temporal evolution of the Universe, starting with the Robertson-Walker geometry and ending with the recent results of loop quantum cosmology in view of the Big Bounce. The reader is accompanied in this journey by an initial technical presentation which, thanks to the fundamental tools given earlier in the book, never seems heavy or obscure.

This volumes gives a complete description of the Universe's birth and evolution, based on the implementation of General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory. The presentation has a pedagogical profile and aims to make accessible, at a Master's Degree level, a wide number of subtle topics concerning the thermal history of the Universe. This also includes the discussion of themes still open to the scientific debate, such as the quantum nature of the cosmological singularity and the nature of the dark components of the Universe. To this aim, this volume is divided into three parts, the first two being dedicated to introducing the paradigms of Einsteinian gravitation and quantum physics. These are necessary for a self-consistent presentation of the third part which fully develops the analysis of the cosmological framework. The first two parts have their own independent value as compact, pedagogical introductions to the corresponding areas, and are completed by relevant monographic appendices. In this respect, the picture outlined in the two chapters devoted to quantum physics of gravitation is distinguished by the clear and complete synthesis it offers to the reader.The main targets of this volume are Master's Degree students; however, because of the advanced character of some selected topics, it can also be fruitfully adopted by PhD students and even researchers wishing to obtain an up-to-date knowledge of some of the topics addressed in the book.

This book aims to present a pedagogical and self-consistent treatment of the canonical approach to Quantum Gravity, starting from its original formulation to the most recent developments in the field.We start with an innovative and enlightening introduction to the formalism and concepts on which General Relativity has been built, giving all the information necessary in the later analysis. A brief sketch of the Standard Cosmological Model describing the Universe evolution is also given alongside the analysis of the inflationary mechanism. After deepening the fundamental properties of constrained dynamic systems, the Lagrangian approach to the Einsteinian Theory is presented in some detail, underlining the parallelism with non-Abelian gauge theories. Then, the basic concepts of the canonical approach to Quantum Mechanics are provided, focusing on all those formulations which are relevant for the Canonical Quantum Gravity problem. The Hamiltonian formulation of General Relativity and its constrained structure is then analyzed by comparing different formulations. The resulting quantum dynamics, described by the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, is fully discussed in order to outline its merits and limits. Afterwards, the reformulation of Canonical Quantum Gravity in terms of the Ashtekar-Barbero-Immirzi variables is faced by a detailed discussion of the resulting Loop Quantum Gravity Theory. Finally, we provide a consistent picture of canonical Quantum Cosmology by facing the main features of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for the homogeneous Bianchi models and then by a detailed treatment of Loop Quantum Cosmology, including very recent developments.