We are excited to announce the inaugural public talk for the Evans Visiting Scholar Program, by Dr. Alex Drlica-Wagner, June 12 at 7 pm, CalIT2 Auditorium.

Dark Matter and Tiny Galaxies

Dark matter is a mysterious component of Universe that possesses roughly six times more mass than all of the ordinary matter we are familiar with. Over the last century, astronomical observations have strongly motivated the existence of dark matter; however, we still know relatively little about it. One way that we can learn more about dark matter is by studying the smallest and darkest galaxies. These galaxies contain hundreds of times more dark matter than ordinary matter, thus making them unique laboratories for studying this mysterious substance. In this talk, I will present the evidence for the existence of dark matter and discuss how tiny galaxies can help us understand the dark side of the Universe.

Dr. Drlica-Wagner is the Schramm Fellow in Particle Astrophysics at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and is working on characterizing a whole new class of tiny galaxies which orbit around our own Milky Way.

Please RSVP at this link.

The Department of Physics & Astronomy and Center for Cosmology is pleased to host Dr. Drlica-Wagner as a long-term visitor thanks to generous support from John and Ruth Ann Evans.

UC Irvine’s Center for Cosmology faculty Prof. James Weatherall, joint with the Western University of Ontario Prof. Christopher Smeenk have been awarded at $1.37 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation for their project studying the philosophical underpinnings of physical cosmology. It was announced on May 7.

 

Here is how the principal investigators describe their project:

Physical cosmology has enjoyed decades of progress, leading to a new understanding of the cosmos and our place in it. But this success comes with new puzzles. Cosmologists seek to understand events that are far removed from us. Moreover, in many cases they study historical episodes that are apparently unique—such as the origin of the universe—and which cannot be studied experimentally. To overcome these challenges, cosmologists have often revisited basic questions concerning what constitutes an acceptable scientific theory, what sorts of explanatory demands a theory of cosmology can meet, and how to understand confirmation in this context. Their answers to these —essentially philosophical—questions have shaped the character of cosmological theory.

The principal goal of this project is to articulate and scrutinize the philosophical commitments behind cosmology’s Standard Model. With the support of a planning grant, we have conducted a landscape review of the field to identify the most significant open questions. One part of the project will present what we take to be the “philosophy of science” underlying cosmological practice, reflecting on and extending the earlier work we have reviewed. The second part of the project will dive more deeply into two pressing conceptual issues, which we identified in workshops with cosmologists supported by the planning grant: (1) the epistemological significance of the crucial role now played by simulations in linking cosmological theory with observations; and (2) the status of the large-scale structure of the universe in light of suggestions from quantum gravity that characteristic features of general relativity, such as singularities, may not persist into future theories.

In addition to this research component, the project includes outreach and capacity-building activities. It will also provide substantial training opportunities at the pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and established researcher levels. 

You can learn more about the project here.

via The Daily Nous.