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Duke Physics Colloquium: Cosmological tension, gravitational waves, and how big will the universe be when it grows up

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Wednesday, February 21, 2018
4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Daniel Scolnic (University of Chicago)
Duke Physics Colloquium

"Cosmological tension, gravitational waves, and how big will the universe be when it grows up" - The next decade will be the golden age of cosmology with transients. In this talk, I will present new analyses of Type Ia Supernovae that mark the most precise measurement of dark energy to date. I will go over how this analysis ties together with the analysis of the local value of the Hubble constant, for which tension persists with the inferred value from the CMB - an exciting hint at departures from the standard cosmological model. I will then discuss the first measurements of the Hubble constant with kilonovae and gravitational waves. I will review the large amount of overlap between the issues that must be tackled for future progress using supernovae and kilonovae to measure cosmological parameters. Finally, I will discuss the roles that surveys like LSST and WFIRST will play and how we can harness the millions of transients discovered to make generation-defining cosmological measurements. Faculty Host: Chris Walter

Contact: Cristin Paul