Abstracts

International School of Cosmic Ray Astrophysics <<Maurice M. Shapiro>>

21st Course: Astroparticle Physics: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
1-7 August, 2018

TOPIC: Beyond the cosmological standard model
LECTURER: Subir Sarkar
Location:


The ‘standard’ model of cosmology is founded on the basis that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating at present — as was inferred from the Hubble diagram of Type Ia supernovae. There exists now a much bigger database of supernovae so we can perform rigorous statistical tests, which show rather surprisingly that the data are consistent with a constant rate of expansion. This motivates discussion of whether dark energy really exists.