Precision Cosmology: Measuring the Small Scale Structures of the Universe

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

AST 0205981 Gnedin There is something magic about the beginnings of centuries: The beginning of the 21st century promises to become a real golden age for cosmology. Only twenty years ago cosmology was a semi-qualitative, highly theoretical collection of general ideas about the possible past and future of the universe. Today, cosmology is rapidly turning into a precision science, informed by a new generation of large, high quality, cosmological surveys carried out by observatories both in space and on the ground. The current task is to understand data already available, and to prepare the tools for precision analysis of forthcoming data. In this project Dr. Gnedin and his collaborators will develop techniques to model the distribution of galaxies using recent and future large-scale surveys. Current surveys have already compiled catalogs of three-dimensional positions of about 100,000 galaxies, and in the next several years this number will increase ten-fold. To mine these surveys for the cosmological information locked inside them, this project will use state-of-the-art numerical simulations to model the distribution of matter in the Universe. ***