The ultimate goal of this project is to seek a paradigm shift in our understanding of the origin, evolution and future of the universe. More specifically, we aim to provide further evidence that big bang inflationary cosmology fails to explain salient features of the universe that can be naturally explained by bouncing cosmology, in which inflation is replaced by a period of slow contraction and the big bang is replaced by a bounce (a smooth non-singular transition from slow contraction to the current period of expansion).
The proposal is timely because bouncing cosmology is passing from a formative phase, which focused on the individual stages of the scenario, to a more mature phase that treats the stages and transitions between them holistically in a way that may reveal new signatures that may be detectable in near-future observations set to deliver results in the next five years or so. Although most considerations to date have focused on effects in the early universe (e.g., through improved measurements of the cosmic microwave background), this proposal also considers implications for the present and future universe (e.g., through measurements or constraints on time-varying dark energy). Furthermore, as the holistic understanding of bouncing cosmology develops, it is a timely moment to consider whether it can be consistently implemented in string theory and quantum gravity.
