Cosmic Fields: Inflation and Dark Energy

宇宙场：暴胀和暗能量

• 批准号: 1068027
• 负责人: Marcelo Gleiser
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: Dartmouth College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-15 至 2014-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1068027&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Cosmic; Fields; Inflation; Dark; Energy

This award funds the research activities of Professors Marcelo Gleiser and Robert R. Caldwell at the Dartmouth College.One of the most remarkable scientific discoveries of the last decades is that our universe has a history: it emerged from a hot and dense initial state some 13.7 billion years ago and has been expanding and cooling ever since. As is the case with archeologists, modern cosmologists seek clues left over in the present to study the past. In particular, cosmologists seek to uncover the fundamental laws that govern the origin of matter and the evolution of material structures -- from atoms to stars and galaxies -- in the universe. Current observational evidence indicates that the rate at which our universe expands has passed through two anomalous periods when its rate accelerated dramatically: one within the first moments of its existence, and another in current times. The proposed research focuses on both periods of anomalous ultrafast expansion. During the first period, known as cosmic inflation, a fundamental open question is how the universe transitioned from the ultrafast expansion to a more moderate expansion rate. The answer is implicitly related to the mechanism that caused this fast expansion. As it ended, matter was explosively created and complex material structures emerged. Models describing the emergence of these structures and their properties will be developed, and their impact on the cosmic history will be investigated. The second period of fast expansion is believed to have been fueled by the still unknown "dark energy." The research outlined here will attempt to elucidate the fundamental properties of dark energy using techniques from high-energy physics, linking fundamental theory to observational evidence.This project is also envisioned to have significant broader impacts. Professors Gleiser and Caldwell will involve graduate and undergraduate students in their research, and thereby provide critical training to junior physicists beginning research in this field. They also intend to give public lectures on their research results, and write articles and essays in the popular media about cosmology and some of its cutting-edge ideas. Both are active in the public understanding of science through their articles in magazines and newspapers, their appearances in TV documentaries, and also as a blogger for National Public Radio (Gleiser).

该奖项资助了马塞洛·格莱泽教授和罗伯特·R。达特茅斯学院的考德威尔说，过去几十年来最引人注目的科学发现之一是，我们的宇宙有一段历史：大约137亿年前，它从一个炎热而致密的初始状态出现，此后一直在膨胀和冷却。和考古学家一样，现代宇宙学家也在寻找现在遗留下来的线索来研究过去。特别是，宇宙学家试图揭示宇宙中物质起源和物质结构演变的基本规律-从原子到恒星和星系。目前的观测证据表明，我们的宇宙膨胀的速率已经经历了两个异常时期，当时它的速率急剧加速：一个是在它存在的最初时刻，另一个是在当前。 拟议的研究重点是两个时期的异常超快膨胀。在第一个时期，即宇宙暴胀期间，一个基本的悬而未决的问题是宇宙如何从超快膨胀过渡到更温和的膨胀率。答案与导致这种快速扩张的机制密切相关。当它结束时，物质爆炸性地产生，复杂的物质结构出现了。将建立描述这些结构及其性质的模型，并研究它们对宇宙历史的影响。第二阶段的快速膨胀被认为是由仍然未知的“暗能量”推动的。“这里概述的研究将试图使用高能物理学的技术来阐明暗能量的基本特性，将基础理论与观测证据联系起来。该项目也被设想具有重大的更广泛的影响。 教授格莱泽和考德威尔将涉及研究生和本科生在他们的研究，从而提供关键的培训，初级物理学家开始在这一领域的研究。 他们还打算就他们的研究成果进行公开讲座，并在大众媒体上撰写关于宇宙学及其一些前沿思想的文章和散文。两人都通过在杂志和报纸上发表文章，在电视纪录片中露面，以及作为国家公共广播电台（Gleiser）的博客作者，积极参与公众对科学的理解。