Quantum de Sitter algebra and some possible applications in cosmology

I summarize results recently obtained in collaboration with Amelino-Camelia, Bruno and Mandanici (preprint University of Rome “La Sapienza”, August, 2005) that concern an analysis of the path of a massless particle in a q-de Sitter space-time and an approximation scheme suitable for the corresponding analysis in a quantum FRW Universe. On the basis of some arguments in the quantum-gravity literature, the q deformation parameter is assumed to depend on both the Planck scale and the curvature, leading to results that are significantly different from those of other studies of Planck-scale effects in cosmology, where the possibility of an interplay between curvature and Planck scale was ignored. Presented at the International Colloquium “Integrable Systems and Quantum Symmetries”, Prague, 16–18 June 2005.