SIMON DEDEO, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

PRINCETON ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM - MARCH 22, 2005

ABSTRACT

Dark Energy: Theories and Questions

I will explore some of the issues raised in my paper astro-ph/0411283. There I describe a new class of dark energy models based on particles that couple to a spontaneously Lorentz violating condensate. I will introduce some of the crucial physical concepts behind this idea, and connect them to larger questions in high energy physics. I will then describe a number of realistic cosmological scenarios in which these "dark energy particles" could lead to the present cosmological acceleration, and possibly to dark energy clustering and smoothing of small scale power.