Very Early Universe in Emergent Gravity

In this talk, we shall discuss the very early Universe in a setting in which gravity emerges from quantum fluctuations of matter. In common view, the very early Universe goes through a quantum gravity phase before the classical gravitation takes shape. In the emergent gravity view, however, the Universe starts out flat, gravity emerges afterward within a brief time, and classical gravitation takes shape even afterward. In this talk, we shall sketch the instabilities of the open and closed strings as a plausible mechanism leading to emergent gravity. We shall discuss the associated cosmological solutions of the Einstein field equations, and describe the evolution of the early Universe. The talk is intended for college sophomores and higher, with formal/mathematical details kept limited. Short Biosketch: Durmuş Ali Demir is a faculty member at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Sabancı University. He obtained his B. Sc. degree in 1991 in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara. After earning his Ph. D. in 1995 from the METU Physics Department, he has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Pennsylvania (1996-97), at the ICTP Trieste (1998-2000), and at the TPI-University of Minnesota (2000–03). He joined the Physics Department of İzmir Institute of Technology in 2003 and worked there until 2019. Demir has been working on quantum physics in relation to particle physics, emergent gravity, and tunneling time. His research is theoretical and phenomenological. He was awarded incentive prizes from the Parlar Foundation, Simavi Foundation, TÜBİTAK, and TÜBA. He is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation – Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award, and an OIC-COMSTECH Distinguished Scholar. He is a member of the Science Academy – İstanbul and of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS).

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