Visible light exposure of galaxy cluster Abell 2744 from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO's Very Large Telescope, X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory & math reconstruction of dark matter location. D. Coe & J. Merten/ESO/NASA/ESA/CXC

Physics Theory Seminar with John W Laiho on Dynamical Dark Energy from Lattice Quantum Gravity

John W Laiho (Hosted by Mark Alford) from Syracuse University will be presenting the seminar on "Dynamical Dark Energy from Lattice Quantum Gravity"

We show that a numerical lattice formulation of quantum gravity leads to the emergence of a universe that satisfies the Einstein equations with a positive cosmological constant.  There are quantum corrections to this classical solution, and these corrections modify the usual form for the cosmological constant, making it a running coupling like in other quantum field theories.  We parameterize this running and show that it is compatible with our universe, but that it makes predictions that can be tested in the not so distant future.

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson fund.