Séminaire Doctoral / Seminar PhD |
| « The theory of cosmic inflation faces challenges, really ? » |
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Denis Werth |
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When I try to explain my field of research to non-physicist
friends or even to physicists (but not necessarily expert in cosmology), they often tell me "Oh but inflation is like string theory no? It has not been proven, right?". In this YMCA, I will try to shed light on some common criticisms regarding cosmic inflation. Some of them are wrong, but others are actually true! I will first motivate the need to have an early phase of inflation in the history of our universe, and then explain why the theory of inflation faces serious challenges. The reasons are technical and not so easy to grasp. In short, it has to deal with the so-called hierarchy problem and the fact that general relativity is not renormalizable (whatever that means...). Without equations (I promise), my goal will be to explain these deep concepts of quantum field theory, so that you will be able to understand people (and identify crackpots) claiming that inflation is an unfounded theory. |
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vendredi 21 avril 2023 - 16:00 Salle Entresol Daniel Chalonge, Institut d'Astrophysique |
| Page web du séminaire / Seminar's webpage |