Quantum cosmological billiards and Maass wave forms

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• Axel Kleinschmidt (Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationphysik)
• Wednesday 08 April 2026, 15:30-16:30
• Seminar Room 1, Newton Institute.

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OOEW12 - Physics and automorphic L-functions: gravity, conformal field theory and number theory

Classical general relativity close to a space-like singularity exhibits simplified dynamics as originally observed by Belinksi, Khalatnikov and Lifschitz in the 1970s. The modern reformulation of this behaviour is in terms of a (chaotic) dynamical system called a cosmological billiard that intriguingly exhibits arithmetic properties. I will review this phenomenon and show how upon quantisation automorphic forms appear and discuss consequences for the fate of the singularity. Time permitting I will also explore going beyond the billiard approximation and connections to Kac-Moody symmetric spaces and associated automorphic forms. This talk is based on work with Hermann Nicolai. 

This talk is part of the Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series series.

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