CAREER: The Fundamental Physics of The Invisible and The Very Early Universe

这项CAREER资助支持宾夕法尼亚大学的Justin Khoury教授的研究。正如现在越来越好地理解的那样，宇宙的能量密度由所谓的“暗区”的贡献主导。 作为研究的一部分，Khoury教授将探索一个诱人的前景，即暗区包括新的光自由度，这些自由度在宇宙尺度上介导长程力，影响暗物质和重子物质。为了确保与实验室和太阳系重力测试的一致性，有必要使用某种屏蔽机制来“隐藏”这些局部自由度。因此，Khoury教授的目标是探索这一想法的理论基础，并充分发展现有筛选理论的观测意义。他还致力于在一致有效场理论的框架内设计新的筛选机制。 Khoury教授还将研究他最近开发的一个新的宇宙学框架，该框架可能消除宇宙学演化早期暴胀时期的需要。 这个框架，他称之为“伪共形宇宙”，为许多经典问题提供了替代解决方案，这些问题也可以通过暴胀来解决。Khoury教授将为非科学专业的新生设计一个研讨会，邀请来自粒子宇宙学中心，宾夕法尼亚大学妇女研究中心和宾夕法尼亚大学妇女中心联合主办的新的公开讲座系列的客座讲师。该系列讲座将通过介绍领先的女性物理学家，为女性在科学领域的更广泛代表性做出贡献。Khoury教授还将建立在他帮助与哥伦比亚，纽约大学和普林斯顿大学建立的一系列定期联合研讨会的基础上，以发展多机构合作。

This CAREER grant supports the research of Professor Justin Khoury at the University of Pennsylvania.As is now increasingly well understood, the energy density of the universe is dominated by contributions from a so-called "dark sector". As part of his research, Professor Khoury will explore the tantalizing prospect that the dark sector includes new light degrees of freedom that mediate long-range forces on cosmological scales, affecting both dark and baryonic matter. To ensure consistency with laboratory and solar system tests of gravity, some screening mechanism is necessary to "hide" these degrees of freedom locally. Professor Khoury therefore aims to probe the theoretical underpinnings of this idea, and fully develop the observational implications of existing screening theories. He also aims to devise novel screening mechanisms within the framework of consistent effective field theories. Professor Khoury will also study a new cosmological framework which he recently developed which might eliminate the need for an early inflationary period of cosmological evolution. This framework, which he calls the "pseudo-conformal universe", provides alternate solutions for many of the classic problems that are also solved by inflation.Professor Khoury's activities are also envisioned to have significant broader impacts. Professor Khoury will design a freshman seminar for non-science majors, with invited guest lecturers from a new public lecture series hosted jointly by the Center for Particle Cosmology, Penn's Women Studies, and Penn Women's Center. The lecture series will contribute to broader representation of women in science by featuring leading women physicists. Professor Khoury will also build on the series of regular joint workshops he has helped established with Columbia, NYU, and Princeton in order to develop multi-institutional collaborations.