Modave Lecture Notes on de Sitter Space & Holography

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.