The 2014 CAP Undergraduate Lecture Tour: The Dog that Didn’t Bark: The Cosmological Constant Problem

The 2014 CAP Undergraduate Lecture Tour: The Dog that Didn’t Bark: The Cosmological Constant Problem and the Puzzle of Dark Energy Dr. Cliff Burgess of McMaster University/Perimeter Institute will be at York to give a talk for the annual CAP Lecture Tour. The (‘old’) Cosmological Constant Problem, which asks why the vacuum zero-point energy appears not to gravitate, was a theoretical thorn in our collective sides even before the Dark Energy was discovered. This talk reviews why it is regarded to be a problem, and argues that its solution is likely to be the biggest clue we have about the nature of Dark Energy. A set of minimal criteria are formulated against which proposed solutions to the problem can be judged, and most proposals found to fail. Finally I argue why I believe that a solution to the Cosmological Constant Problem exists and is telling us why the LHC should not see superpartners for ordinary particles, even though it also implies that supersymmetry must exist and be important at low energies. Date: Monday, February 3, 2014 Time: 2:30 pm Location: PSE 317 Refreshments will be served prior to the lecture at 2:20 pm in PSE 317A. More information about Dr Burgess can be found here: http://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/~cburgess/cburgess/