June 17, 2024
Avoiding infinity
Presentation by Armin van de Venn in Estonia
FIAS PhD student Armin van de Venn presented his work at the international conference "Metric-Affine Frameworks for Gravity 2024" in Estonia.
The singularity theorems of Hawking and Penrose describe the conditions under which singularities form in space-time - i.e. infinities in density or incompleteness of observer trajectories.
In physics, infinities are fundamentally undesirable and are considered unphysical. Therefore, attempts are made to avoid these singularities in various ways.
One way of avoiding singularities is through "torsion", which is closely related to the spin density of matter. It is an integral part of space-time and was not taken into account by Einstein in his general theory of relativity.
In his presentation "Road to Singularity theorems with Torsion", van de Venn derives the singularity theorems in the case of non-vanishing torsion. This makes it clear when torsion breaks the conditions of the theorems and thus avoids singularities.
Metric-Affine Frameworks for Gravity 2024 is a workshop focussing on the different approaches to gravity, where the geometric construction assumes an independent affine connection in addition to the metric. Topics range from fundamental questions to applications to cosmology, gravitational waves, black holes and other objects. The meeting took place from 17 to 21 June 2024 in Tartu, Estonia. It continues a series of previous conferences and workshops on related topics.
