Carlsberg grant for Quantum Gravity

By Lilian Skytte, lilsky@sdu.dk, 12/20/2023

With a Semper Ardens: Accomplish grant from the Carlsberg Foundation og DKK 9.995.000 a project of scales has been set in motion. “Probing Quantum Gravity at all scales” will give us insight into a world that is definitely not visible to the naked eye.

“Using the mathematical analogue of a microscope, I zoom in on the microscopic building blocks of our universe and make theoretical predictions about their structure. I then zoom out to confront the theoretical predictions with experimental data”, says Professor Astrid Eichhorn from the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy.

Getting knowledge on the smallest things in our universe will ultimately help us understand the cosmos surrounding us at the grand scale of galaxies and beyond. The key innovation of this new research is to use the microscope for the building blocks of spacetime, dark matter and dark energy together for the first time. Much of the research of these matters has been done on one subject at a time in isolation, but Astrid will aim for a more integrated approach to get nearer to what is happening out there in reality.

Taking the world apart using quantum gravity is one of the most fascinating research subjects at the time within physics, and Astrid herself is highly motivated to contribute. She states: “It is one of the deepest and most fascinating mysteries of our universe, what its fundamental building blocks are. It is also one of the oldest mysteries of our universe, but I believe that we are tantalizingly close to finding the answer. We must therefore leverage recent theoretical and experimental innovations to finally learn what the world is made of at its most fundamental level”.