Speaker
Description
Recent cosmological observations increasingly challenge the standard picture of cosmic acceleration, pointing toward an evolving dark-energy sector—possibly with phantom characteristics—and by placing considerable pressure on even the better-theoretically motivated inflationary models. In this talk, I present a new mechanism for cosmic acceleration arising from quantum gravity interactions in (mean-field) Group Field Theories (GFTs). Depending on the interaction type, the resulting cosmological dynamics can either feature a late-time attractor corresponding to a dynamical dark energy phase—often with characteristic phantom behavior, including in models inspired by simplicial gravity—or instead support an early slow-roll inflationary epoch driven by the same underlying quantum-gravitational effects. This emergent inflation, effectively captured by a single-field description, can sustain the required expansion, naturally avoids the graceful exit problem, and appears to transition into a persistent, non-accelerating phase consistent with classical expectations. I conclude by outlining prospects for further developments.
