String theory and cosmological singularities
SUMIT R DAS
Department of Physics and Astronomy,
E-mail: das@pa.uky.edu
Abstract. In
general relativity space-like or null singularities are common:
they imply that ‘time’ can have a beginning or end.
Well-known
examples are singularities inside
black holes and initial or final
singularities in expanding or
contracting universes. In recent times,
string theory is providing new
perspectives of such singularities which
may lead to an understanding of
these in the standard framework of
time evolution in quantum
mechanics. In this article, we describe
some of these approaches.
Keywords. String theory;
cosmological singularities.
PACS Nos 11.25.Pm; 11.25.Tq