Relic Cosmic Structure from Unconstrained GR and EM
Speaker
Date
Time
Place
Room 7S1
Abstract
Motivated by the quantum description of gauge theories, I will discuss the cosmological effects of relaxing the Hamiltonian and momentum constraints in general relativity and Gauss' law in electromagnetism. The unconstrained theories have new source terms that mimic a pressureless dust and a charge density that only follows geodesics. The source terms may be the simplest explanation for dark matter and generically predict a charged component. Discovery of such terms would rule out inflation and be a direct probe of the initial conditions of the universe.
Biography
Tom Melia is an Associate Professor at IPMU in Japan. He did his PhD at Oxford University and was then a postdoc at CERN and at Berkeley. In his research, he aims to answer some of the most basic scientific questions we know how to ask: “Why are we here? What are the basic laws of the universe?”