Objective
I propose to develop new observational probes of cosmology based
on gravitational lensing. The project consists of three themes:
1) Computer tools will be developed for detecting and measuring small-scale structures in
the distribution of dark matter using strong gravitational lenses. This will resolve one of the
few persistent conflicts between observations and the predictions of the Cold Dark Matter
(CDM) model. The tools will enable the scientific community to take full advantage of present
imaging data and future data coming from missions like the proposed EUCLID satellite.
2) There are several proposed and ongoing surveys designed to measure the weak
gravitational lensing of galaxies across large regions of the sky and to measure the redshifts
of hundreds of millions of galaxies. To maximize the use of this data I propose a joint analysis
of redshift and lensing surveys that will increase the sensitivity to the expansion history of the Universe and separate two observational consequences of dark energy which are otherwise degenerate in weak lensing data alone. This would enable us to verify whether general
relativity is valid on cosmological scales.
3) The feasibility of studying cosmology using future radio observations of the 21 cm radiation coming from early epochs of the Universe will be investigated. My work has shown that the
gravitational lensing of this radiation could provide powerful constraints on the density of the Universe, dark energy's equation of state, and the masses of neutrinos. It should also be
possible to actually map the distribution of dark matter across large sections of sky with high
fidelity. My goal is to treat the observational noise and systematics realistically and determine
what impact telescope design and survey strategy have on the scientific output.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesphysical sciencestheoretical physicsparticle physicsneutrinos
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesrelativistic mechanics
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringsatellite technology
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyastrophysicsdark matter
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyphysical cosmology
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Call for proposal
ERC-2010-StG_20091028
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
ERC-SG - ERC Starting GrantHost institution
40126 Bologna
Italy