Princeton University Gravity Initiative Virtual Seminar Series

In this talk we will investigate the past dynamics of cosmological solutions to Einstein's equations, containing a Big Bang singularity. More precisely, we will focus on the classical generalized Kasner examples. The celebrated ``singularity'' theorem of Hawking states that the past of sufficiently small perturbations of such solutions are causally geodesically incomplete. However, it is not in general known whether such a degeneracy is related to the formation of a curvature singularity. In many cases, unstable dynamics are predicted, which adds to the difficulty of the problem. We will discuss a recent joint work with I. Rodnianski and J. Speck that classifies the behavior of perturbed solutions in the so-called subcritical regime.