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SUMMARY:Fingerprints of the Early Universe - Dr Hiranya Peiris (UCL)
DTSTART:20140218T190000Z
DTEND:20140218T200000Z
UID:TALK50786@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:21137
DESCRIPTION:The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is the left-over heat fr
 om the Big Bang. When we observe this radiation\, we see the universe when
  it was only 370\,000 years old. Now\, 14 billion years later\, it has coo
 led to microwave frequencies. The CMB is nearly uniform. The slight variat
 ions of 1 part in 100\,000 in its temperature\, hotter or colder than the 
 average\, reflect initial inhomogeneities in the matter and radiation that
  later collapsed due to gravity to form clusters and galaxies. These fluct
 uations carry information about the origin\, composition and evolution of 
 the universe\, and theories of the origin of the universe make detailed pr
 edictions about their statistical properties.\n\nGiven the extreme conditi
 ons in the early universe\, the CMB is our best hope of uncovering fingerp
 rints of the physics operating at very high energy scales\, inaccessible t
 o Earth-bound particle accelerators. But what created these primordial inh
 omogeneities? Current cosmological data are\, for the first time\, precise
  enough to allow detailed observational tests of models of the very early 
 universe. I will describe how data from next generation cosmological surve
 ys such as ESA's Planck CMB satellite will help us move beyond a phenomeno
 logical description of the early universe\, and uncover the physics at hit
 herto-unexplored energies.
LOCATION:Wolfson Lecture Theatre\, Department of Chemistry
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