A new mechanism for dark energy: the adaptive screening

by Andi Hektor (Nat. Inst. of Chem.Phys. & Biophys. (EE))

Wednesday 22 Oct 2014, 11:30 → 12:30 Europe/Zurich

4/2-011 - TH common room (CERN)

We describe how known matter effects within a well-motivated particle physics framework can explain the dark energy of the Universe. By considering a cold gas of particles which interact via a vector mediator, we show that there exists a regime where the gas reproduces the dynamics of dark energy. In this regime the screening mass of the mediator is proportional to the number density of the gas, hence we refer to this phenomenon as “the adaptive screening mechanism”. As an example, such screening mass could result from Anderson localization of the vector mediators. The proposed dark energy mechanism explains the recent Baryon Acoustic Oscillations observations and can be tested by the EUCLID experiment, as well as by studying properties of dark photons and sterile neutrinos. My talk is based on arXiv:1407.0389. As a future prospect I will extend the idea for the inflation.