Astro-Particle Seminar
From black holes in the early universe to future CMB experiments (Special Seminar)
Presented by Raphael Flauger (UCSD)
In the first part of my talk I will discuss the robustness of inflation to inhomogeneities. Inflation is often invoked as a solution to the so-called horizon problem, but work by Goldwirth, Piran, and others has indicated that inflation may come with its own horizon problem, i.e., it may not begin unless the universe is sufficiently inhomogeneous. This is sometimes referred to as the inflationary "initial-conditions problem." I will discuss results from recent numerical simulations that show that at least large-field inflation is more robust to large inhomogeneities than indicated by earlier work. In the second part of my talk I will mention a future experiment to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background with unprecedented precision. The main goals of this experiment, CMB-S4, are the search for primordial gravitational waves, light relics from the early universe, and a measurement of the sum of neutrino masses, but with its high resolution it has the potential to revolutionize cluster science as well.
4:00 pm, Thursday, September 14, 2017
PAIS-1140, PAIS
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