The Physics & Astronomy Colloquium Series presents Douglas Clowe of Ohio University, on “The Dark Side of the Universe” on Friday, Oct. 13, at 4:10 p.m. in Walter 245.
Douglas Clowe
Abstract: Over the past twenty years, cosmology has advanced from discovering that the universe’s expansion rate is accelerating to being able to place constraints on most cosmological parameters at a ~10% precision level. Planning is currently underway for future cosmological surveys that will allow us to constrain the cosmological parameters to percent level precisions over the next decade. I will give a broad overview of the various measurement techniques being used and an in depth look at how one of these techniques, the evolution of the cluster mass function, places constraints on cosmological parameters. I will discuss work being done here at OU by my research group on finding and correcting for systematic errors in the methods for measuring the masses of clusters of galaxies in order to permit the measurement of cosmological parameters at the desired accuracy. Finally I will discuss the future surveys and estimates of the precisions we hope to achieve.
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