Can the Standard Model of Particle Physics Explain Dark Energy?

Ludovic van Waerbake (U. of British Columbia, Canada)

The discovery of cosmic acceleration established dark energy as one of the central problems in cosmology. In the standard cosmological model, dark energy is described by a cosmological constant, yet its extremely small value remains difficult to reconcile with expectations from quantum field theory. Recent DESI results, combined with other cosmological probes, suggest that dark energy may evolve with cosmic time. In this talk, I will first review the observational evidence for dark energy, what current data tell us about its properties, and why evolving dark energy is theoretically challenging. I will then discuss the possibility that dark energy may not require a new particle or field, but could instead emerge from known but overlooked physics within the Standard Model of particle physics.