The Future of

Theoretical Cosmology
Sean Carroll

100 years from now,

what will we be thinking
and how will we be thinking it?
Focus on three kinds of questions
Composition
What kind of particle is
the dark matter?
Can we detect/produce
dark matter astrophysically
or in the lab?
What the hell is the
dark energy?
Does dark energy evolve?
What is the origin of
ultra-high-energy cosmic
rays?
What is the origin of the
matter/antimatter
asymmetry?
Origins Evolution
Did the universe inflate? How did galaxies and
What is the origin of clusters form?
the cosmological What is the distribution
perturbations? of the dark matter?
Is there a gravitational- What is the chemical
wave background? evolution of the
What is the role of universe?
extra dimensions, if How did supermassive
any? black holes form?
Are there multiple Can we disentangle
universes with lensing effects from
different conditions? tensor modes in the
What happened before CMB?
the Big Bang? Was Friedmann right?
 Composition
Questions

4% Ordinary Matter
22% Dark Matter
74% Dark Energy

Prediction: We
will completely
understand this.
 Every slice of the pie
chart is problematic.

Ordinary Matter: Where are there more baryons

than antibaryons? Why comparable to the
dark matter density?

Dark Matter: What is it? Can we detect it directly,

or indirectly, or make it in the lab? How many
components are there?

Dark Energy: What is it? Is it evolving? Why

isn't there much more? Why now?
 Baryogenesis
The good news is that many
baryogenesis scenarios are tied to
feasible particle-physics
experiments (CP violation etc).

Electroweak baryogenesis: we need to understand

the Higgs sector better, to understand the
electroweak phase transition.

GUT Baryogenesis: grand unification predicts that the

proton should decay. It hasn't yet, but it might.

Leptogenesis: massive neutrinos may violate lepton

number, later processed into a baryon asymmetry.
 Dark Matter: well-motivated candidates
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs)
- in equilibrium early; freeze-out after becoming
nonrelativistic (cold)
- must be neutral, color singlets; likely EW scale
- perfectly suited to collider experiments
- both directly and indirect searches
Axions
- light pseudoscalars predicted by Peccei-Quinn
solution to the strong-CP problem
- produced out of equilibrium, by vacuum
misalignment or topological-defect radiation
- colliders no good, need dedicated experiments
 Bonus: understanding the WIMP sector, and directly
detecting it, tests general relativity at T ~ 10 GeV.

Best current test WIMP freeze-out

of Friedmann eq.
in the early

Expansion rate
universe: Big Bang
Nucleosynthesis,
at 1 MeV - 50 keV.

So we can push the

known history of the
universe back by
a factor of 10,000.
Scale factor -->
Dark Energy: well-motivated candidates
Dark Energy: ill-motivated candidates

Vacuum energy, a/k/a cosmological constant

-- a strictly constant energy density inherent
in empty spacetime

Dynamical dark energy

-- evolution characterized by equation-of-state
parameter w = p/r

Modified gravity
-- Friedmann eq. is wrong, but only at late times

Nothing
-- We're just going about it wrong
The dark energy is probably vacuum energy.
Requires dramatic fine-tuning, but every alternative
requires even more. Observational signature:
constant energy density (w = -1, and w' = 0).

If it is vacuum energy,
cosmological observations
won't tell us anything;
we'll have to understand
fundamental physics
(extra dimensions, susy),
probably through But knowing whether
accelerator experiments.
it is vacuum is of
paramount importance!
 dark energy
An introverted
dark sector?

ordinary
matter gravity

dark
Standard Model matter
SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1)
 dark energy
An interactive
dark sector? evolution?
perturbations?

mass-varying neutrinos?
variable constants?
5th forces?

variable-mass particles?
ordinary Chaplygin gas?
matter gravity

scattering?
annihilation?
SU(2)? (wimps)
anomalies?
(axions) dark
Standard Model baryogenesis? matter
SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1)
Origins Questions
Inflation is the guiding principle
behind much thought about the
very early universe. From a tiny
starting patch at 1016 GeV,
accelerated expansion creates
a smooth, flat universe that
grows into our own.

Explains: homogeneity, isotropy, flatness, absence of

monopoles, nearly scale-free primordial fluctuations

Predictions: - fluctuations should not be precisely scale-free

- tensor gravity-wave fluctuations should exist
along with scalar fluctuations; potentially
observable in CMB B-mode polarization
A deep conceptual issue about
inflation: Does it really provide
more “natural” initial conditions?

Basic issue: Entropy of our current

universe is about Stoday ~ 10100, and the
entropy of the early radiation-dominated
universe was Srad ~ 1088. But the entropy
of a tiny inflationary patch is only Sinfl ~ 1010.

So: if we are going to “randomly fluctuate” into some state,

shouldn't it be a high-entropy state, not a low-entropy one?

Moral: we really do need to understand the pre-inflationary

universe, i.e. have a theory of initial conditions.
 A
A possible solution: us as a baby universe

If there is a pre-existing
us empty, static spacetime
(primeval atom) (or whatever), quantum
fluctuations can nucleate
bubbles of false vacuum
that then grow into
universes of their own.

background
False-vacuum bubbles are
naturally low entropy.
 A natural consequence: the multiverse
If one bubble pinches
off, it will just keep
happening, creating
an infinite fractal
landscape of universes.

The babies may or

may not be essentially
the same; low-energy
physics could be
different from one
child to the next.

Note time-symmetry.
 The multiverse and environmental selection

● Imagine that:
●

●
There are many distinct
●
domains throughout space.
●
They each have a different
●
vacuum energy.
●Then we could never observe
●regions where the vacuum

●energy is large enough to rip

●us to shreds – the ultimate

●selection effect.

●
String theory might plausibly predict that there can be
●regions of space with utterly different physical properties.

●Perhaps 10500 different vacuum states.

 But is the multiverse testable?

Scientific theories must make testable predictions.

But every theory also makes untestable predictions.

The multiverse is not a theory; it's a prediction.

To make all this respectable, we

don't need to “observe the multiverse”;
we need to understand the laws of
physics sufficiently well to know
whether they really predict a fractal
universe on ultra-large scales.
 Cosmology depends on fundamental physics.

We really need a theory of everything (or everything

relevant, up to MPlanck); will we get one?

Particle accelerators
increase in energy by
103 every 40 years.

We'll reach the Planck

scale around 2200 --
not within the scope of
this talk.
 Evolution Questions

We're pretty
good at
power-spectrum
issues,
especially
in the linear
regime.

Less good at
the nonlinear
universe:
galaxies and
clusters
(and stars!).
[Tegmark]
The real issue is dynamic range: important processes
stretch from atomic physics to cluster dynamics.

Clusters of galaxies:

mass ~ 1046 g
timescale ~ 1016 sec
size ~ 1024 cm

Atoms:

mass ~ 10-24 g
timescale ~ 10-10 sec
size ~ 10-8 cm
Numerical simulations
are the way forward,
and modern work is
increasingly including
more and more physical
processes. (Not just
simple dark-matter
gravitational dynamics.)

But there is a lot of room

for improvement --
and it will come!

[Virgo consortium]
Quantum computation: intrinsically massively parallel.

Three classical bits can be

in any of eight states:
(000), (001), (010), etc.

Three quantum bits (qubits) are naturally in

superpositions of all eight possibilities:

|y > = a|000> + b|001> + g|010> + d|011> +

e|100> + z|101> + h|110> + q|111>

Operating a quantum computer with 300 qubits

is like simultaneously running as many classical
processors as there are particles in the universe.
 Utterly new techniques: Genetic Algorithms.

Define a “fitness landscape” to determine the

success of a program. (E.g., “fitting the data.”)

Run multiple algorithms.

Allow fittest algorithms to reproduce with mutations.

Repeat as you fit the data better and better.

Eventually, computers will be deciding how to do

the simulations, as well as doing them. They will
be functioning as theoretical cosmologists!
 Conclusions
The last hundred years have given us a remarkable picture
of the universe; the last ten years have brought it into
sharp focus.
We are blessed with puzzles about the evolution,
composition, and origin of the universe – but they
don't seem completely intractable.
Theoretical work is driven by data, so we never really know
what's coming.
Scientific cosmology was born and matured in the 20th
century. The 21st is unlikely to be as groundbreaking – but
there will be plenty of surprises. Right now we don't
even know what questions we'll be asking.