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[Emeriti-faculty] DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY EVENTS FOR WEEK OF MAY 16, 2010 THROUGH MAY 20, 2011



Good morning:

Department events for the week of may 16, 2011 are:

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

1:30 pm
Wednesday, May 18. 2011
Lunchtime Cosmology Seminar
Robinson Hall, Room 250
"On dS Vacua in Type IIB Flux Compactifications"
Per Berglund
University of New Hampshire


Time to be announced
Friday, May 20, 2011
Tufts University
Ph.D. Defense
TUFTS UNIVERSITY
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Ph.D. Thesis Defense
"Higher-dimensional Defects in Cosmology"
Handhika Ramadhan 


3:00 pm
Friday, May 20, 2011
TUFTS UNIVERSITY
Physics and Astronomy Colloquium
Anderson Hall, Room 313
"The Expansion History of the Universe: Myths and Facts"
Antonaldo Diaferio
Università di Torino
Data from extensive surveys of high-redshift type Ia supernovae and 
gamma-ray bursts have usually been interpreted as a robust indication that 
the Universe expansion had an initial deceleration phase followed by the 
present acceleration phase. 
Because the solution based on the standard cosmological constant appears 
to be problematic, alternative cosmological models have been proposed 
under the assumption that this expansion history is well constrained by 
current data. I show that, when analysed with a proper Bayesian approach, 
this interpretation is not in fact as robust as usually assumed. 
I show that the data do not exclude an expansion history substantially 
different from the standard model. This result suggests that the range of 
possibilities of alternative theories of gravity and cosmology can be 
wider than usually conceived.
Refreshments served at 2:30 in Robinson Hall, Room 251