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Past Events
Calculating What's in the Universe from the Biggest Color Map
| Speaker: | Dr. Shirley Ho |
| Affiliation: | Chamberlain and Seaborg Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley; National Laboratory Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University |
| Date: | February 3, 2012 (Fri) |
| Time: | 5:00 p.m. |
| Venue: | Lecture Theatre T3, Meng Wah Complex, HKU |
Abstract:
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey surveyed 14,000 square degrees, and delivered over a trillion pixels of imaging data. I present cosmological results from this unprecedented data set which contains over a million galaxies distributed between redshift of 0.45 to 0.70. With such a large volume of data set, high precision cosmological constraints can be obtained given a careful control and understanding of observational systematics. I present a novel treatment of observational systematics and its application to the clustering signals from the data set. I will present confident cosmological constraints on dark components of the Universe and highest precision constraints of the non-gaussianity of early Universe to date utilizing Large Scale Structure.
About the Speaker:
Dr Shirley Ho is an expert in the field of Cosmology. She received her BA at UC at Berkeley and PhD at Princeton University. Her research interests include large scale structures, cosmological parameter estimation, baryon acoustic oscillations, Lyman-alpha forest, galaxy formation, redshift space distortions, primordial non-gaussianities, absorbers and high-redshift galaxies, extra-solar planets. She is currently a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and is also an assistant professor on leave from Carnegie Mellon University until she will official start her position as a Faculty there.
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Physics colloquium series is organized to introduce cutting edge researches and new development in physics, designed to be suitable to graduate and undergraduate students, and also to scientists working on different fields. Each colloquium will generally start with an extensive introduction of the background of the field, followed by forefront research topics and results. The colloquium will serve as an education forum for students and laymen alike, and also serve as a platform for exchange and update their knowledge of various branches of physics among academic staff members.
Coffee and tea will be served 20 minutes prior to the Colloquium.
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