Title: Unimodular JT gravity and de Sitter quantum cosmology

Speaker: Farbod Rassouli (University of Nottingham)

Time: 2:30 pm, April 3 (Thursday) 2025

Venue: Room W260, Physics Building

Abstract: In this talk, I will show how a gauge-theoretic approach to Jackiw–Teitelboim (JT) gravity naturally yields a two-dimensional Henneaux–Teitelboim (HT) unimodular theory, applicable to both flat and curved spacetimes. Under a mini-superspace reduction, the Wheeler–DeWitt equation becomes a Schrödinger-like equation admitting a consistent, unitary quantum description. The resulting wavefunction describes a quantum distribution for the scale factor, illuminating cosmic expansion and contraction, and allowing topology change at a=0.

Bio:Mr. Farbod Rassouli is a second year PhD student at University of Nottingham under supervision of Dr. Oliver Gould and Prof Paul Saffin, is currently working on twofold: Strong Phase Transition in QFT and Unimodular Gravity in lower dimensions.He completed his Underground at Royal Holloway University of London (2017-2022) and Master in Science in Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forcer at Imperial College London (2022-2023). His Research interest includes, quantum cosmology, QFT, topology change and phase transition.