Scalars 2025: Higgs bosons and cosmology

Session

Plenary 4

Sep 22, 2025, 4:30 PM

0.06 (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Physics)

Conveners

Plenary 4

• Zackaria Chacko (University of Maryland, College Park)

85. On the present status of inflationary cosmology

Andrei Linde (Stanford University)

9/22/25, 4:30 PM

Plenary

I will describe basic principles of inflationary cosmology, the problem of initial conditions in the early universe, and a profound role of quantum effects in formation of the global structure of the universe. This will include a discussion of the impossibility to observe the Big Bang, and of the important difference between the universe and the Schrodinger cat. Then I will describe some of...

84. Inflationary potentials with the exponential vs polynomial approach to the plateau

Renata Kallosh

9/22/25, 5:00 PM

Plenary

One of the conclusions based ob the Planck data was that inflationary potentials have a plateau, which is approached exponentially fast at the large values of the scalar field. However, recent data from ACT, DESI, and SPT show that the inflationary spectral index n_s is slightly higher than its value based on the Planck data. We will explain why this small deviation, if confirmed, is very...

55. Inflationary particle production

oleg lebedev (Uni. Helsinki)

9/22/25, 5:30 PM

Plenary

I discuss particle production via inflation, which can be the main dark matter production mechanism.