Conference

The eternal inflation scenario predicts that our observable universe resides inside a single bubble embedded in a vast inflating multiverse. Collisions between bubble universes imprinted in the CMB sky provide a powerful observational test of this idea. I will describe a robust algorithm for non-Gaussian source detection in massive datasets, and present its application to the search for bubble collision signatures in CMB data from WMAP.

In the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence, I will discuss model-independent properties shared by bulk theories of gravity with consistent dual descriptions. I will then discuss the prospects of extending these ideas to non-conformal theories, in particular to attempts to realize cosmological theories holographically. I will address the status of in-principle falsifiability of various holographic proposals through internal consistency conditions of the boundary theory.

FRW/CFT duality is a proposal for a holographic dual description for universe created by bubble nucleation. For (3+1) dimensional universe, the dual theory is defined on 2-sphere at the boundary of open universe. I will study correlation functions and explain essential features of FRW/CFT duality: One bulk field corresponds to a tower of CFT operators The boundary theory contains 2D gravity, and the Liouville field plays the role of time. Energy-momentum tensor has dimension 2, as required from the 2D conformal symmetry.