College of Arts and Sciences

I will present recent developments in analytical methods to predict abundance, clustering, velocities and bias of Dark Matter halos. In the standard analytical approach, halos are identified either with sufficiently high peaks of the initial matter density field, or with the largest spheres enclosing a sufficiently high density. I will revise the physical assumptions leading to this standard picture, and show how a careful statistical implementation of the model of collapse (even in the simple spherically symmetric case) leads to a surprisingly rich structure. This allows to make simple – yet remarkably accurate – analytical predictions for halo statistics, a necessary ingredient on the road to precision cosmology.

Continue reading… Excursion Sets, Peaks and Other Creatures: Improved Analytical Models of LSS – Marcello Musso

Observations of the cosmos provide a valuable tool to study the fundamental laws of nature. The future generation of astronomical surveys will provide data for a sizeable fraction of the observable sky. This rich data set should provide the means to answer fundamental questions: what are the laws of physics at high energies in the Early Universe? What is the nature of neutrinos? What is dark matter? What is dark energy? Why are there baryons at all? In this talk I will review the current status, provide a roadmap for future prospects and discuss in detail how we might approach the task of extracting information from the sky to answer the above questions.

Continue reading… Do We Understand the Universe? – Raul Jimenez

In this talk, I will discuss novel ideas to smooth and flatten the universe and generate nearly scale-invariant perturbations during a contracting phase that precedes a cosmological bounce. I will also present some recent work on the possibility of having well-behaved non-singular bounces.

Continue reading… New Directions in Bouncing Cosmologies – Anna M. Ijjas

The avalanche of data over the past 10-20 years has propelled cosmology into the “precision era”. The next challenge cosmology has to meet is to enter the era of accuracy. Because of the intrinsic nature of studying the Cosmos and the sheer amount of data available and coming, the only way to meet these challenges is by developing suitable and specific statistical techniques. The road from precision Cosmology to accurate Cosmology goes through statistical Cosmology. I will outline some open challenges and discuss some specific examples.

Continue reading… Beyond Precision Cosmology – Licia Verde

In this talk I will discuss a novel theory of superfluid dark matter. The scenario matches the predictions of the LambdaCDM model on cosmological scales while simultaneously reproducing the MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) empirical success on galactic scales. The dark matter and MOND components have a common origin, as different phases of a single underlying substance. This is achieved through the rich and well-studied physics of superfluidity. The framework naturally distinguishes between galaxies (where MOND is successful) and galaxy clusters (where MOND is not): due to the higher velocity dispersion in clusters, and correspondingly higher temperature, the DM in clusters is either in a mixture of superfluid and normal phases,

Continue reading… New Approaches to Dark Matter – Justin Khoury

Calibration is the critical link between the LIGO detectors and searches for gravitational-wave signals in LIGO data. The LIGO calibration effort involves constructing the external strain incident on each LIGO detector from the digitized readout of the LIGO photodetectors. The essential steps in calibration are the development of accurate models of the LIGO detectors, the digitization of these models, and the application of the calibration models to construct the external strain. The Advanced LIGO era has brought new complexities in accurately modeling the LIGO detectors as well as the challenge of producing calibrated external strain data in low-latency. This talk will give an overview of the Advanced LIGO calibration procedure,

Continue reading… Calibration of the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Detectors – Madeline Wade

Inflation prescribes a homogenous and isotropic universe on large scales, and it generates density fluctuations which are expected to be spatially correlated over the whole Hubble volume. Such fundamental predictions have been tested with current Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data and found to be in tension with our — remarkably simple — ΛCDM model. Is it just a random fluke or a fundamental issue with the present model? In this talk, I will present new possibilities of using CMB polarization as a probe of the measured suppression of the large-scale temperature correlation function. I will also discuss the viability of using this new technique with present and upcoming data.

Continue reading… New Probes of Large-scale CMB Anomalies – Simone Aiola

Despite tremendous recent progress, gaps remain in our knowledge of our understanding of the Universe. For example, we have yet pinned down the properties of dark energy, nor have we confirmed Einstein’s theory of Gravity at the largest scales. Current and upcoming large sky surveys of the cosmic microwave background, large scale structure in galaxies, quasars, lyman-alpha forest and 21cm presents us with the best opportunity to understand various mysterious properties of the Universe and its underlying principles. I will review recent results from the Baryon Oscillations Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). These results have demonstrated the feasibility of high precision Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) measurement,

Continue reading… Joining Forces Against the Dark Side of the Universe: The Cosmic Microwave Background and the Large Scale Structure – Shirley Ho

Cosmology has seen tremendous progress thanks to precision measurements and is bound to greatly benefit from upcoming Large Scale Structure and Cosmic Microwave Background data. I will point out a number of interesting directions. In particular, I discuss how the microphysics of inflation may be tested in galaxy surveys through “fossil” signatures originating from squeezed primordial correlations. I further elaborate on the constraining power of CMB spectral distortions on small-scale cosmological fluctuations and on particle decays in the very early Universe in relation to reheating. I also describe some of the possible constraints on inflation and reheating from future B-mode observations.

Continue reading… Testing Early Universe Physics with Upcoming Observations – Emanuela Dimastrogiovanni

The great desert hypothesis in particle physics defines the relation between the electroweak scale and the high scale where an unified theory could describes physics. In this talk we review the desert hypothesis and discuss the main experimental constraints from rare decays. We present a new class of theories for the TeV scale where the desert hypothesis is not needed. In this context one predicts the existence of new particles with baryon and lepton numbers called lepto-baryons. The implications for cosmology, collider experiments and the unification of forces are discussed.

Continue reading… New Paradigm for Physics Beyond the Standard Model – Pavel Fileviez Perez

Two major challenges for cosmology over the next decade are to characterize the dark energy responsible for the cosmic acceleration and to weigh the neutrinos, the only Standard Model particles whose masses are not yet known. Part I of the presentation describes my ongoing work to understand the effects of massive neutrinos and evolving dark energy on the formation of large-scale structure. I include both effects in a redshift-space generalization of Time-RG perturbation theory, and establish its validity through comparison to N-body simulations. In Part II I discuss my previous work using stars and laboratory experiments to search for couplings between dark energy and Standard Model particles.

Continue reading… Cosmology from the Megaparsec to the Micron – Amol Upadhye

On de Sitter space, there exists a special value for the mass of a graviton for which the linear theory propagates 4 rather than 5 degrees of freedom, known as a partially massless graviton. If a satisfactory non-linear version of the theory can be found and coupled to known matter, it would have interesting properties and could solve the cosmological constant problem. I will review attempts at constructing such a theory and some no-go’s, and will describe a Vasiliev-like theory containing a tower of partially massless higher spins.

Continue reading… Massive and Partially Massless Gravity and Higher spins – Kurt Hinterbichler