Speaker
Eric Linder
(UC Berkeley)
Description
Dark energy away from a cosmological constant Λ – like early universe inflation that ends – can be understood in terms of well defined physical behaviors. These guide dark energy into thawing or freezing classes, with w0–wa arising as a physical calibration of the phase space. Other regions of phase space – zones of avoidance – require violation of some basic principle. We explore these cases, drawing a direct analogy with how non-Gaussianity in inflation can add physics beyond standard dynamics. We examine the physics implications if the best fit of current data is taken to be truth.
