Cosmological and Astrophysical consequences of non-standard gravitational interactions

by Cristiano Germani (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)

Wednesday 6 Feb 2013, 11:00 → 11:50 Europe/Stockholm

Nordita West Seminar Room

Theoretical efforts to explain many of the cosmological and astronomical observations commonly require to postulate the existence of new particles. However, no degrees of freedom beyond those of the standard model of particle physics have been unveiled so far on cutting edge experiments such as ATLAS/CMS at the LHC.

Although new fields might still exist at very high energies, it would be possible that the new physics which is needed to explain cosmological and astrophysical phenomena, mainly lies in novel gravity-particles' interactions.

In this talk I will discuss this minimalistic possibility, and I will point out that interesting new physical effects can emerge if the strong equivalence principle is abandoned at very large scales. As a worked out example, I will show how cosmic Inflation and the consequent generation of primordial anisotropies can be naturally accommodated within the standard model of particle physics non-minimally coupled to gravity.