Search Talks

Astrophysical observations of the structure of galaxies and clusters are no longer simply proving the existence of DM, but have sharpened into a discovery tool probing the particle physics of dark matter.  I discuss small scale structure anomalies for cold dark matter and their possible implications for dark matter physics, such as the existence of forces in the dark sector.   New results on cluster scales provide a new important handle for constraining dark matter's particle interactions.

High resolution CMB experiments, such as ACT, SPT, and the Planck satellite are making precision measurements of the secondary anisotropies caused by the thermal Sunyaev Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect from galaxy clusters. However, our ability to obtain cosmological information from this tSZ signal is limited by our theoretical understanding of the baryons in clusters and groups. I will discuss how cross correlation methods are providing new windows into the messy “Gastrophysics” of the intracluster medium and the potential for these methods to constrain various cosmological parameters.

Recent progress on the construction of holographic lattices and its applications to AdS/CMT correspondence will be briefly reviewed. Our special interests will focus on the building of bulk geometry of gravity whose holographic duals exhibit metal-insulator transitions (MIT).  In particular, the Peierls phase transition induced by charge density waves is implemented in a holographic manner. The holographic entanglement entropy close to quantum critical points will be discussed as well.