Abstract :

Dark energy is the leading candidate for the mechanism that is responsible for causing the cosmological expansion to accelerate. Dr Ratra will describe the astronomical data which persuade cosmologists that (as yet undetected) dark energy and dark matter are by far the main components of the energy budget of the universe at the present time. He will review how these observations have led to the development of a quantitative "standard" model of cosmology that describes the evolution of the universe from an early epoch of inflation to the complex hierarchy of structure seen today. He will also discuss the basic physics and the history of ideas, on which this model is based.

About the speaker:

Prof. Bharat Vishnu Ratra is an Indian-⁠American physicist and theoretical cosmologist and astroparticle physicist who is currently a university distinguished professor of Physics at Kansas State University. He is known for his work on dynamical dark energy and on the quantum-⁠mechanical generation of energy density and magnetic field fluctuations during inflation.
For more, visit his Wikipedia page. [1]