ar X iv : h ep - t h / 01 10 00 7 v 2 2 7 N ov 2 00 1 Les Houches Lectures on de Sitter Space ∗

These lectures present an elementary discussion of some background material relevant to the problem of de Sitter quantum gravity. The first two lectures discuss the classical geometry of de Sitter space and properties of quantum field theory on de Sitter space, especially the temperature and entropy of de Sitter space. The final lecture contains a pedagogical discussion of the appearance of the conformal group as an asymptotic symmetry group, which is central to the dS/CFT correspondence. A (previously lacking) derivation of asymptotically de Sitter boundary conditions is also given. Based on lectures by A. S. at the LXXVI Les Houches school “Unity from Duality: Gravity, Gauge Theory and Strings”, August 2001. On leave from the L. D. Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Moscow, Russia.