Events in Physics
The Universe as a Gravitational Waves detector. The point of view of an experimentalist.
Experimental cosmology has recently become a precision tool to measure the Universe. The Cosmic Background Radiation (CMB), emitted 380,000 years after the big bang is one of the best tools available today to try to understand the origin of our Universe, where does the matter and energy come from. In addition, the closer we study the Universe to the big bang, the higher the energy involved and so we have the perfect "particle accelerator", at least theoretically. In this talk I will review briefly the history of the CMB, from the discovery by Penzias and Wilson to the recent Planck results. I will then show where is the next frontier - the study of the polarisation of the CMB - and how to use the entire Universe as a Gravitational Wave detector.
Professor Lucio Piccirillo
School of Physics & Astronomy
The University of Manchester