Astrophysics

Alternative theories of gravity are popular alternatives to the LCDM model because they can self-accelerate without a cosmological constant. On smaller scales, consistency with solar system tests of gravity is achieved by utilising screening mechanisms, which act to hide fifth-forces locally. This makes them difficult to distinguish from general relativity. In this talk I will describe recent work using astrophysical objects---stars, galaxies, and clusters---as new and novel probes of alternative gravity theories.

The ordinary atoms that make up the known universe, from our bodies and the air we breathe to the planets and stars, constitute only 5 percent of all matter and energy in the cosmos. The remaining 95 percent is a recipe of 25 percent dark matter and 70 percent dark energy, both nonluminous components whose nature remains a mystery.

In her March 2 public lecture, Katherine Freese will recount the hunt for dark matter, from the discoveries of visionary scientists like Fritz Zwicky, the Swiss astronomer who coined the term "dark matter" in 1933, to the deluge of data today from underground laboratories, satellites in space, and the Large Hadron Collider.

The kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect is a direct probe of the distribution and velocity of electrons on cosmological scales.  Recent progress in Cosmic Microwave Background observations allow statistical detections of this subtle effect originating from a number of different tracers populations.  In my talk, I will review the observational status, highlight the consequences for astrophysics and cosmology and discuss future directions.

The global redshifted 21-cm radiation background is expected to be a powerful probe of the re-heating and re-ionization of the intergalactic medium. However, its measurement is technically challenging: one must extract the small, frequency-dependent signal from under much brighter and spectrally smooth foregrounds. Traditional approaches to study the global signal have used single-antenna systems, where one must calibrate out frequency-dependent structure in the overall system gain, as well as remove the noise bias from auto-correlating a single amplifier output. I will review these approaches, and critically examine several recent proposals to measure the global background using interferometric setups. In particular, using very general principles, I will show that the latters' sensitivity is directly related to two characteristics: the cross-talk between the readout channels (i.e. the signal picked up at one antenna when the other one is driven) and the correlated noise due to thermal fluctuations of lossy elements (e.g. absorbers or the ground) radiating into both channels. I will also briefly discuss the implications and future prospects for interferometric methods.

Neutron stars are a celestial gift to scientists. These incredibly dense collapsed stars act as very precise cosmic beacons that help shed light on some of the most challenging problems in modern physics.

In her Feb. 3 talk at Perimeter Institute, astrophysicist Victoria Kaspi will explore these strange objects, explain how astronomers are using them to study issues ranging from the origins of the universe to the very nature of matter, and even let the audience hear the cosmic symphony they create.

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) has been pushing our measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background on small scales to high resolution and deeper sensitivity since 2008. While ACT stopped taking temperature-only measurements in 2010, ACTPol is now operating with polarisation-sensitive detectors. I will present some of the current ACTPol results in terms of the power spectrum constraints. In addition, I'll highlight some of our recent results using ACTPol data, including detections of both the thermal and the kinetic Sunyaev- Zel'dovich effects through cross-correlation with other probes. I'll discuss the lensing of the small-scale microwave sky as measured by ACT and discus how cross-correlating CMB lensing with other probes gives us a handle on galaxy properties like bias. Finally, I'll discuss the next stage in small-scale CMB cosmology: Advanced ACTPol, which will improve our understanding of the reionisation of the universe - arguably our least constrained epoch to date.