Professor Mark Trodden

Professor Trodden's work history includes: research associate [Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1995-1997), Case Western Reserve University (1997-1999)], visiting assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University (1999-2000), Professor of physics at Syracuse University (2000-2009).

He is also heavily involved in participating in journals and working groups including: Working Group on Cosmological Connections, American Linear Collider Physics Group (Co-Chair, 2003-2006), The Gravitational Lens (Editorial Board member, 2005-2007), New Journal of Physics (Editor, 2006), Springer (Editorial Advisory Board member, Multiversal Journeys Series, 2007), Physics Letters B. (Editor, 2009), Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (Editor, 2010), Center for Particle Cosmology, University of Pennsylvania (Fay R. and Eugene L. Langberg Professor of Physics and Co-Director, 2009-present).

Professor Trodden is actively engaged in the construction and investigation of models that may shed light on the fundamental physics origin of some or all of these currently unsolved problems. He is also interested in the role that cosmological data can play in constraining models of particle physics beyond the standard model. His work within these areas has been broad, spanning approaches to dark energy and dark matter; extra dimensional models of particle physics and cosmology; the baryon asymmetry of the universe; inflation and its problems and alternatives; topological defects in cosmology; and the BPS structure of intersecting branes in supersymmetric theories. He has worked broadly in both cosmology and particle physics, in work ranging from the structure of inflationary spacetimes to the BPS structure of intersecting branes in supersymmetric theories.

The majority of his work is firmly on the particle physics-cosmology border, and includes the development of the modified gravity approach to cosmic acceleration, approaches to dark energy and dark matter; extra dimensional models of particle physics and cosmology; the baryon asymmetry of the universe; inflation and its features; and topological defects in cosmology. Much of his research program over the last several years has been concerned with trying to map out the space of viable models of the accelerating universe. This has included investigating the microphysical implications of exotic dark energy models, and proposing one of the most-studied approaches to the idea that a modification of general relativity may explain cosmic acceleration. In this area I have carried out some of the careful analyses of structure formation in these models, which have demonstrated how the resulting scale-dependent growth factor yields testable predictions even when the cosmic expansion history precisely mimics that of Lambda-CDM.