Thursday, March 19, 2025, 16:00
OSGA/EG06 a/b
Christian Byrnes, University of Sussex
Abstract:
Inflation — period of exponential expansion shortly after the Big Bang
— resolves some classic problems with cosmology such as the horizon and
flatness problems. More excitingly, it also explains the origin of large-scale
structures in terms of QFT fluctuations present during inflation. Despite this
success, major open questions remain such as what caused inflation, whether it
was one or multiple fields, the energy scale of inflation, and how the universe
reheated following inflation. I will discuss these open issues and prospects
for resolving them with future observations. If time allows, I will also
briefly link inflation to the formation of primordial black holes, which can
explain the observed dark matter without requiring a new particle.