Special Universe talk: Inflation, infinity, equilibrium and the observable Universe

by Prof. Andreas Albrecht (University of California at Davis)

Wednesday 24 Jul 2013, 16:30 → 17:30 Europe/Berlin

Seminar room, basement (Excellence Cluster Universe)

Cosmic inflation has given us a remarkably successful cosmological phenomenology. But the original goal of explaining why the cosmos is likely to take the form we observe has proven very difficult to realize. The status of "eternal inflation" with an eye on the roles various infinities have (both helpful and unhelpful) in our current understanding will be reviewed. Then attempts to construct an alternative cosmological framework that is truly finite, using ideas about equilibrium and dark energy will be discussed. A report on some recent results that point to observable signatures will be given.