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Big Bang or Freeze?

Speaker:

Abstract

We discuss a unified picture where both inflation and a present dynamical dark energy arise from the same scalar field. The history of the Universe describes a crossover from a „past fixed point" where all particles are massless, to a „future fixed point" where exact scale invariance is spontaneously broken, generating the particle masses. The cosmological solution can be extrapolated to the infinite past in physical time - the Universe has no beginning. This is seen most easily in a frame where particle masses and the Planck mass are field-dependent and increase with time. In this „freeze frame" the Universe shrinks and heats up during radiation and matter domination. In the equivalent, but singular Einstein frame cosmic history finds the familiar big bang description. A simple model with no more free parameters than LCDM is compatible with all present observational tests.

Big Bang or Freeze?

Venue

Higgs Centre Seminar Room, JCMB (Find us on campus maps)
The Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics
School of Physics and Astronomy
James Clerk Maxwell Building, 4305
Peter Guthrie Tait Road
Edinburgh
EH9 3FD
UK