News

On February 26, the IPNS One-Day Workshop “DESI and related physics” was held at the KEK Tsukuba Campus. The workshop focused on the latest observational results from the large-scale galaxy survey of DESI (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument) and their implications for cosmology. Approximately 60 researchers participated in the workshop, including remote participants.

 

Last year, results from DESI suggested that dark energy—responsible for the current accelerated expansion of the Universe—may not be the cosmological constant predicted by Einstein, but instead could evolve with time. This finding attracted significant attention across multiple research fields. In this workshop, participants shared the latest results from DESI and discussed the physical implications suggested by these findings. Discussions also addressed the future directions of galaxy surveys in light of the DESI results.

 

The main topics included cosmological models suggested by the DESI results, models of time-varying dark energy, applications of machine learning in studies of the large-scale structure of the Universe, and the potential for discovering new physics with the spectroscopic survey instrument Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS).

 

Participants brought their perspectives on how the latest DESI data should be interpreted, leading to active discussions on the interpretation of the DESI observational results and their implications for future observational programs. The workshop provided a valuable opportunity to clarify key issues and future research directions.