Andrei Linde
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (November 2010) |
Andrei Linde | |
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Physical Cosmology | |
Institutions | Lebedev Physical Institute CERN Stanford University |
Doctoral advisor | David Kirzhnits |
Andrei Dmitriyevich Linde (
Linde is one of the main authors of the
Cosmological phase transitions and old inflation
During 1972 to 1976, David Kirzhnits and Andrei Linde developed a theory of cosmological
These observations became the main ingredients of the first version of the
New inflation
In 1981, during a seminar by Stephen Hawking on quantum gravity, Linde developed another version of inflationary theory that he called "new inflation".[citation needed] He demonstrated that the bubbles not joining up (see page 138 of A Brief History of Time, Chapter 8) could be solved if there was a bubble that contained our region of the universe in it. He also said that the phase transition must have taken place slowly inside the bubble. This theory resolved the problems of the original model proposed by Guth while preserving most of its attractive features. A few months later, a similar scenario was proposed by Andreas Albrecht and Paul Steinhardt which referenced Linde's paper. Soon after that, it was realized that the new inflationary scenario also suffered from some problems. Most of them arose because of the standard assumption that the early universe initially was very hot, and inflation occurred during the cosmological phase transitions.
Chaotic inflation
In 1983, Linde abandoned some of the key principles of old and new inflation and proposed a more general inflationary theory,
Creation of matter in the universe
According to the inflationary theory, all
Inflationary multiverse and eternal chaotic inflation
Perhaps the most far-reaching prediction made by Linde was related to what is now called the theory of inflationary multiverse, or string theory landscape. In 1982-1983, Steinhardt, Linde and Alexander Vilenkin realized that exponential expansion in the new inflation scenario, once it begins, continues without end in some parts of the universe. On the basis of this scenario, Linde proposed a model of a self-reproducing inflationary universe consisting of different parts. These parts are exponentially large and uniform, because of inflation. Therefore, for all practical purposes each of these parts looks like a separate mini-universe, or pocket universe, independent of what happens in other parts of the universe.
Inhabitants of each of these parts might think that the universe everywhere looks the same, and masses of elementary particles, as well as the
These ideas did not attract much attention at that time, in part because the anthropic principle was very unpopular, in part because the new inflationary scenario did not quite work and was replaced by the chaotic inflation scenario. However, in 1986 Linde found that in many versions of the chaotic inflation scenario, the process of exponential expansion of the universe also continues forever in some parts of the universe. Linde called this process
Linde and his Stanford colleague Vitaly Vanchurin calculated the number of all possible universes, to be about 10^10^16 if we do not consider the fact that humans as observers are limited in their ability to distinguish more universes. If this is taken into account, there could be as many as 10^10^10^7 universes. By analyzing the
Inflation and string theory
A significant advance in this area was obtained when the theory of inflationary multiverse was implemented in the context of
One of the main challenges of this theory is to find the probability of living in each of these different parts of the universe. However, once string theory is invoked, it is extremely difficult to return to the previous picture of a single universe. In order to do so, one would need to prove that only one of the many vacua of string theory is actually possible, and to propose an alternative solution of the many problems which can be solved by using the anthropic cosmological principle in the context of the theory of inflationary multiverse.,[3][4]
Linde continues his work on the theory of inflationary multiverse. In particular,
Honors and awards
In July 2012, Linde was an inaugural awardee of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the creation of physicist and internet entrepreneur Yuri Milner. In 2014, he was a co-recipient, with Alan Guth and Alexei Starobinsky, of the Kavli Prize awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.[6]
Linde is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Personal life
Linde is married to Renata Kallosh. They have two sons.[7]
His parents were Soviet physicists Irina Rakobolskaya and Dmitry Linde .
Political positions
In February–March 2022, he signed an open letter by Russian scientists condemning the
References
- ^ "Physicists Calculate Number of Parallel Universes".
- S2CID 119482182.
- S2CID 5221573.
- ISBN 9780316155793.
- S2CID 119284788.
- ^ "Nine Scientists Share Three Kavli Prizes".
- UCLA. Archived from the originalon September 25, 2004. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
- ^ "Открытое письмо российских учёных и научных журналистов против войны с Украиной" [An open letter from Russian scientists and scientific journalist against the war in Ukraine] (in Russian). Retrieved 2 April 2022.
- ^ An open letter from Breakthrough Prize laureates
External links
- Andrei Linde's webpage at Stanford University
- Andrei Linde on INSPIRE-HEP
- Andrei Linde publications indexed by Google Scholar
- Andre Linde radio interview on Entitled Opinions
- Linde, Andrei (2004) "Inflation, Quantum Cosmology and the Anthropic Principle" in John A. Wheeler's 90th birthday. Cambridge University Press.
- Slack, Gordy (1998) "Faith in the Universe: Conversations with cosmologists," California Wild51(3)