HEP Theory Journal Club

The Fate of a Contracting Universe and the State of Matter at High Density

Jerome Quintin

McGill

Motivated by bouncing cosmology, I will describe the evolution of cosmological perturbations in a contracting universe for a general fluid and show that the perturbations grow non-linearly to a point where they might collapse into black holes. In fact, I will show that under certain conditions the fate of a contracting universe appears to be a gas of black holes. I will derive the thermodynamic properties of such a gas of black holes and end with a discussion of this state of matter at high density and its possible implications in high energy physics.