Research Seminars @ Illinois

View Full Calendar

Tailored for undergraduate researchers, this calendar is a curated list of research seminars at the University of Illinois. Explore the diverse world of research and expand your knowledge through engaging sessions designed to inspire and enlighten.

To have your events added or removed from this calendar, please contact OUR at ugresearch@illinois.edu

Dark Energy Dynamics, Spatial Curvature, Neither, or Both?

Event Type: Seminar/Symposium
Sponsor: Department of Astronomy
Location: 134 Astronomy Building
Virtual: Join online
Date: Oct 7, 2025 3:45 - 4:45 pm
Speaker: Professor Bharat Ratra
Contact: Daniel Franco
E-Mail: danielf9@illinois.edu
Phone: 217-300-6769
Views: 91
Originating Calendar: Astronomy Colloquium Speaker Calendar; Observations over the last two and half decades have persuaded cosmologists that (as yet only indirectly detected) dark energy is by far the main component of the energy budget of the current universe. I review a few simple dark energy models, including the currently-standard ΛCDM cosmological model, and compare their predictions to observational data, to derive cosmological parameter constraints and to study consistency of different data sets. I summarize observational constraints on dark energy dynamics and spatial curvature, two parameters that extend away from the time-independent cosmological constant dark energy and flat spatial hypersurfaces of the standard ΛCDM model. I also summarize observational constraints on the Hubble constant. I conclude with a list of my favorite open cosmological questions.

link for robots only