• Tuesday 14 February 2012 at 10.15 in E204: Mark Hindmarsh (Helsinki)
  Cosmic Strings, Inflation and the Cosmic Microwave Background
  Abstract: Theories of physics beyond the Standard Model predict the existence of relativistic strings, either as composite objects, or as fundamental constituents of matter. In a class of well-motivated models of the early Universe, inflation ends by producing cosmic strings, which will still be present at a low density today. This talk reviews the status of cosmic strings in inflationary cosmology, and describes the latest constraints from the Cosmic Microwave Background data.
  
  
• Tuesday 28 February 2012 at 10.15 in E204: Stephan Huber (Sussex University, Brighton, UK)
  TBA
  Abstract: TBA
  
  
• Tuesday 20 March 2012 at 10.15 in E204: Sergey Ketov (Tokyo Metropolitan University)
  Inflation in supergravity: the meeting point of cosmology and high-energy physics
  Abstract: A simple (economic) and viable realization of cosmological inflation of early Universe in supergravity theory represents the important challenge to unifying cosmology with particle physics beyond the Standard Model. We propose a new, simple and viable realization of chaotic inflation in supergravity, based on the new theory of supergravity that we call F(R) supergravity. The F(R) supergravity can be understood as the N=1 locally supersymmetric extension of the popular f(R) gravity theory in four spacetime dimensions. Our proposal to inflation uses the supersymmetric realization of the famous inflationary scenario proposed by Starobinsky a long time ago. In my seminar I review the Starobinsky inflation, f(R) gravity, F(R) supergravity, and their applications to the early universe cosmology. Reheating and particle production after inflation, as well as various connections to high-energy physics beyond the Standard Model of elementary particles are briefly discussed too.
  
  
• Tuesday 27 March 2012 at 10.15 in E204: Dan-Olof Riska (Helsinki)
  TBA
  Abstract: TBA

Seminars in 2007 , in 2008 , in 2009 , in 2010 , in 2011 , earlier in 2012 .

Hopefully the up to 50 min + 10 min discussion long seminar/colloquium will be understandable to a wide audience.
Contacts: Keijo Kajantie (keijo kajantie at helsinki fi) [department / HIP seminar],
Dani Figueroa (daniel dot figueroa at helsinki dot fi) [cosmo seminar]