Title: Gravitational Particle Production in the Early Universe
Speaker: Edward W. (Rocky) Kolb (University of Chicago)
Abstract:
In 1939, Erwin Schrödinger discovered that particles may be created from the vacuum solely due to the expansion of the early universe. He referred to this as an “alarming phenomenon.” It might be that Schrödinger’s alarming phenomenon produced the presently observed dark matter. After all, the only thing certain about dark matter is that it has gravitational interactions. I will explore the possibility that dark matter has ONLY gravitational interactions and was produced by the expansion of the universe.