Sam Llaneta with Andreas Berlind (Vanderbilt)
Dissecting the Angular Momentum of Dark Matter Halos
We want to test the current theory that the dark matter of a halo imparts its angular momentum on infalling gas, dust, and stars that ultimately forms the disks of galaxies. Under this model, the spin of...
Particle Astrophysics Theory
Tyler McMaken with Glenn Starkman
Constraining the Topology of the Universe: A Generalization of Flat Manifold Parameter Spaces
An open question for cosmologists concerns whether the universe is infinite or finite. For a flat cosmology, the topology of the universe can take on any one of 18 manifolds, some of which are...
John Dulin with Glenn StarkmanHearing the Shape of the UniverseThe past few years of work on discerning the topology of the universe have focused on methods like cosmic crystallography and circles-in-the-sky searches, as well as examinations of the correlation matrix to uncover manifolds with non-trivial topology. While helping to...
Daniel Pfeffer with Claudia de Rham
The Accelerating Universe and Vacuum Energy
During his senior project, Daniel Pfeffer will investigate the acceleration of the Universe. He will explore whether or not it is possible to screen the effect of a large vacuum energy and give rise the amount of acceleration currently...
Michael Sammon with Harsh Mathur
Axion Electrodynamics
Axions were introduced in particle physics in the 1970s to explain CP violation in the standard model. Subsequently axions have become a leading candidate for dark matter in Cosmology. The axion field has an unusual coupling to electromagnetism leading to remarkable electromagnetic phenomena that...