Galileon Cosmology
The universe is getting bigger, and it’s doing so at ever faster rates. One explanation is “dark energy,” but skeptics consider its invocation mildly unsatisfying; an alternative approach, they propose, is to modify our mathematical treatment of gravity’s effects at large distances. The use of a particular method – the galileon scalar field – allows for self-accelerating solutions, which may ultimately be able to reconcile one of the universe’s biggest mysteries. (Image credit: NASA)↧