"Cosmology without epicycles"
Prof. Robert Alicki
International Center for Theory of Quantum Technologies (ICTQT), University of Gdansk (Poland)
Live streaming: Teams link

The four puzzles of cosmology, namely the origin of inflation and its termination, baryogenesis, acceleration of expansion and dark matter composition, are addressed within a new model which does not involve "epicycles" like inflaton fields with fine-tuned potentials or dark energy concept. The main assumption, motivated by the analysis of the reduced dynamics of open quantum systems embedded in the de Sitter space, is that the corresponding vacuum can be treated as a real, physical heat bath at the Gibbons-Hawking temperature proportional to the Hubble constant. This leads to the modified Friedmann equations for the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker universe which predict the new mechanism of inflation and its graceful exit, mathematically similar to the model of superfluorescence in quantum optics, and additionally, a viable baryogenesis mechanism via gravitational anomaly. The same equations applied to the late Universe show inevitability of acceleration of expansion which in turn puts very specific limits on the particle spectrum beyond the Standard Model relevant for dark matter particles.