graduate

Testing inflation with galaxies

TYPEAstrophysics Seminar
Speaker:Vincent Desjacques
Affiliation:Institute for Theoretical Physics. University of Zurich
Date:04.04.2012
Time:14:30
Location:Lidow 620
Abstract:

Galaxy clustering can be used to constrain the amount of primordial non-Gaussianity, which is a powerful discriminant between inflationary models. I will show that it is possible to derive accurate predictions for the effect of generic non-Gaussian initial conditions on the galaxy power spectrum.
I will also demonstrate that a suitable weighting of several galaxy populations can suppress the sampling variance and shot noise and, possibly, achieve stronger constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity than the cosmic microwave background.