Modave Lecture Notes on de Sitter Space & Holography

TL;DR

This paper reviews various aspects of de Sitter space, including its classical geometry, thermodynamics, geodesics, shockwaves, and recent holographic approaches, aiming to understand its quantum nature.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of de Sitter space and explores recent developments in static patch holography for quantum theories.

Findings

Identification of thermodynamic properties like Gibbons-Hawking entropy

Analysis of geodesics and shockwave solutions in de Sitter

Discussion of recent static patch holography approaches

Abstract

These lecture notes provide an overview of different aspects of de Sitter space and their plausible holographic interpretations. We start with a general description of the classical spacetime. We note the existence of a cosmological horizon and its associated thermodynamic quantities, such as the Gibbons-Hawking entropy. We discuss geodesics and shockwave solutions, that might play a role in a holographic description of de Sitter. Finally, we discuss different approaches to quantum theories of de Sitter space, with an emphasis on recent developments in static patch holography.