Challenging Routes in Quantum Cosmology

Quantum cosmology has gradually emerged as the focus of devoted research, mostly within the second half of last century. As we entered the 21st century, the subject is still very much alive. The outcome of results and templates for investigation have been enlarged, some very recent and fascinating. Hence this book, where the authors bequeath some of their views, as they believe this current century is the one where quantum cosmology will be fully accomplished.

Though some aspects are not discussed (namely, supersymmetry or loop structures), there are perhaps a set of challenges that in the authors' opinion remain, some since the dawn of quantum mechanics and applications to cosmology. Others could have been selected, at the readers' discretion and opinion. The authors put herewith a chart and directions to explore, some of which they have worked on or aimed to work more, in the twilight of their current efforts. Their confidence is that someone will follow in their trails, venturing in discovering the proper answer, by being able to formulate the right questions beforehand. The authors' shared foresight is that such discoveries, from those formulations, will be attained upon endorsing the routes within the challenges herewith indicated.

Standing Point: Introduction Point; A Reader's Digest; Routes: Degeneracy of Solutions; Landscape and Selection Rules; Singularity Avoidance; Observational Issues; Wheeler - deWitt Equation and Hilbert Space Structure; Chaos and Integrability; Elements from Strings and Loops; Other Routes; Appendices: Hamiltonian Formulation; Superspace Quantization; Semi-Classical Gravity; Minisuperspace; Boundary Conditions; 'Predictions' from Quantum Cosmology.