Spotlight

Nishant Agarwal

Nishant Agarwal is a graduate student in theoretical cosmology working with Professor Rachel Bean. He is interested in studying physics of the very early universe and the accelerated expansion of the current universe.

Recent observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation have revealed that just after the big bang, the universe underwent a brief period of rapid expansion called inflation. In collaboration with Professor Liam McAllister and graduate student Gang Xu, Nishant is performing a detailed numerical study of inflation in a string-theoretical model called brane inflation.

Another keen area of research in cosmology is to decode the mysterious nature of dark energy, which makes up 72% of the total energy budget of the universe, and is held responsible for the current cosmic acceleration. An interesting proposal in this direction is the presence of large extra dimensions that could dilute gravity at long length scales, enabling accelerated expansion. Along with collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania, Nishant studied a model of cascading cosmology, which in a simple time-independent limit was found to mimic dark energy with an energy density up to 67% of the total energy density in the universe. They hope that a more general time-dependent solution might be able to exactly reproduce cosmic acceleration.

  • Contact

    Department of Physics Cornell University 109 Clark Hall Ithaca, New York 14853-2501 Phone: (607) 255-6016 Fax: (607) 255-2643 General email: physics@cornell.edu

    Laboratory of Atomic and Solid-State Physics (LASSP) 511 Clark Hall Ithaca, New York 14853-2501 Phone: (607) 255-6053 Fax: (607) 255-6428

    Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics (LEPP) Newman Laboratory Cornell University Ithaca, New York 14853-2501 Phone: (607) 255-4951 Fax: (607) 254-4552