Speaker
Description
Quantum gravity is expected to unravel the fundamental quantum structure of spacetime and geometry. In several approaches the very continuum notions of spacetime and geometry are in fact emergent, rather than fundamental, and so is their dynamics. This goes beyond the intuition of effective field theory approaches to quantum gravity, and opens the possibility of quantum gravity affecting also large-scale features of the universe. We report on a series of recent results in the context of the group field theory formalism, in which the fundamental quantum interactions among "atoms of space" produce, in a continuum, hydrodynamic-like approximation, an effective cosmological dynamics characterized by a late-time acceleration of a dynamical dark energy type, as well as a dark matter-like contribution.
The underlying mechanism and models, as well as the approximations leading to the effective cosmological dynamics, but also the generality and robustness of the result, will be discussed.