Speaker
Description
Connecting fundamental theories of gravity to cosmological observations remains a major challenge: predictions formulated at high energies must be translated into viable low-energy dynamics and ultimately into observable signatures. I will discuss two complementary approaches to this problem. First, I will present new cosmological constraints on a late-time dark-energy scenario motivated by Group Field Theory, illustrating how current large-scale structure and supernova observations can directly constrain parameters associated with an underlying quantum-gravity construction. Second, I will discuss how the Effective Field Theory of Dark Energy provides a more general route for exploring the space of viable low-energy, classical gravitational theories, combining theoretical stability conditions with increasingly precise cosmological observations. I will conclude with prospects for using next-generation large-scale structure data to establish a stronger connection between fundamental theory and observable cosmology.