Physics Colloquium: Quarks to Cosmos: Fundamental Physics from the LSST

Thursday, January 18, 2018

3:30 PM-4:30 PM

Larry Gladney, PhD, University of Pennsylvania

The two largest constituents of the universe are dark matter (DM) and dark energy (DE) hence an understanding of both is essential to claim that we understand the universe.  Exploration of DM and DE constitute two of the chief goals for particle physics and cosmology in the next two decades.  A 10-year optical imaging survey with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will produce an unparalleled dataset of 37 billion stars and galaxies over half the sky that will give us unprecedented measures of the properties of both DM and DE.  Previous astronomical measurements have given us compelling evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics, the best constraints we have on DM and DE and constraints on several other topics of interest to particle physicists like the number and masses of neutrino species.  This talk will cover some of the science goals of LSST and what we hope to learn from a telescope rather than an accelerator in the next decade.

Contact Information

Professors Gordon Richards and Frank Ferrone
gtr@physics.drexel.edu