Speaker
Jacob Leedom
(University of California, Berkeley)
Description
I will discuss the relations between swampland conjectures and observational constraints on both inflation and dark energy. Using the fact that the constant c appearing in the de Sitter conjecture is a universal constant whose value can be determined from inflation, there may be no observable distinction between constant and non-constant models of dark energy. However, the latest modification of the above conjecture, which utilizes the second derivative of the potential, opens up the opportunity for observations to determine if the dark energy equation of state deviates from that of a cosmological constant.
