Cosmic Fields: Inflation and Dark Energy

该奖项资助了达特茅斯学院的马塞洛·格莱泽教授和罗伯特·R·考德威尔教授的研究活动。过去几十年中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，它从又热又密的初始状态中出现，从那以后一直在膨胀和冷却。就像考古学家的情况一样，现代宇宙学家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--从原子到恒星和星系--演化的基本规律。目前的观测证据表明，我们宇宙的膨胀速度已经经历了两个反常时期，当时它的速度急剧加快：一个在它存在的第一个时刻，另一个在现在的时代。拟议的研究集中在这两个反常超快膨胀时期。在被称为宇宙膨胀的第一个阶段，一个基本的悬而未决的问题是，宇宙是如何从超快的膨胀过渡到更温和的膨胀速度的。答案隐含着与导致这种快速扩张的机制有关。随着它的结束，物质被爆炸性地创造出来，复杂的物质结构出现了。将开发描述这些结构及其性质的出现的模型，并将调查它们对宇宙历史的影响。第二阶段的快速扩张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利用高能物理的技术来阐明暗能量的基本性质，将基础理论与观测证据联系起来。该项目预计也将产生重大的更广泛的影响。Gleiser和Caldwell教授将让研究生和本科生参与他们的研究，从而为开始这一领域研究的初级物理学家提供关键培训。他们还打算就他们的研究成果进行公开演讲，并在流行媒体上撰写关于宇宙学及其一些前沿思想的文章和论文。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。

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).