PHYSICS SEMINAR
STellar Astrophysics & Relativity research cluster/Physics Department seminar
WHY DOES THE UNIVERSE ACCELERATE?
Dr. Valerio Faraoni
Physics Department,
Bishop’s University
Friday, November 11, 2011
2:30-3:30 pm
Nicolls 315
A month ago, the 1998 discovery that the cosmic expansion is accelerated was celebrated with the Nobel Prize in Physics given to Perlmutter, Schmidt, and Riess. What causes this acceleration remains a mystery. The most popular explanations involve dark energy, the backreaction of inhomogeneities on the cosmic dynamics, giant voids, and modified gravity. Radical departures from our traditional thinking surface in these scenarios. A fully satisfactory explanation of the cosmic acceleration is likely to require even more radical concepts.
