The Cosmological Constant Puzzle - Symmetries of Quantum Fluctuations

Zapraszamy w piątek  27.03.2020 o godz. 12:00 na seminarium.

Seminarium ONLINE pod tytułem: "The Cosmological Constant Puzzle - Symmetries of Quantum Fluctuations" poprowadzi Steven Bass, UJ

Abstract:

The cosmological constant in Einstein's equations of General Relativity is a prime candidate to describe the dark energy that drives the accelerating expansion of the Universe and which contributes 69% of its energy budget. The cosmological constant measures the energy density of the vacuum perceived by gravitation. Experimentally, it is characterised by a tiny energy scale 0.002 eV. How should we understand this ? The quantum vacuum is described by particle physics where the mass scales that enter are very much larger. If one naively sums the zero-point energies of quantum fluctuations up to the energies where we do collider experiments at CERN then the cosmological constant comes out 10^60 times too large. Here we argue that the tiny value of the cosmological constant may be telling us something deep about the origin of symmetry in the subatomic world. The gauge symmetries which describe particle interactions may be emergent. The presentation will be given at Colloquium level and suitable for good Masters students.