Challenging the Cosmological Constant – Nemanja Kaloper

Date: Thu. February 28th, 2008, 11:30 am-12:30 pm
Location: Rockefeller 221

We outline a dynamical dark energy scenario whose signatures may be simultaneously tested by astronomical observations and laboratory experiments. The dark energy is a field with slightly sub-gravitational couplings to matter, a logarithmic self- interaction potential with a scale tuned to ~ 10 -3 eV, as is usual in quintessence models, and an effective mass m phi influenced by the environmental energy density. Among the signatures of this scenario may be dark energy equation of state w is not equal to -1, stronger gravity in dilute mediums, that may influence BBN and appear as an excess of dark matter, and sub- millimeter corrections to Newton’s law, close to the present laboratory limits.