CAREER: Probing Fundamental Physics and Cosmic Structure by Maximizing the Impact of Next Generation Microwave Surveys

研究人员将建造一个新的仪器来研究到达地球的最遥远的信号，宇宙微波背景（CMB）。 这些微弱的无线电信号被认为起源于宇宙开始时的热大爆炸。宇宙的膨胀已经将这些信号从非常热的初始条件转变为我们今天观察到的微弱和寒冷的信号。 研究人员计划设计和建造一个新的，更敏感的，仪器的调查CMB。与学生一起，研究人员将把这个仪器安装在射电望远镜上，解决宇宙学和物理学中最重要的问题，测量无线电信号的特殊特征，并将数据与量子引力和广义相对论的预测进行比较。调查员的计划还包括旨在教育公众的活动，为具有不同背景和教育水平的社区成员提供活动。推广工作包括在高中水平的借阅图书馆增加实验，并制作视频，展示他们正在建造和使用的仪器。由于将建造高灵敏度的仪器，该奖项资助的努力最终也可能应用于一些技术领域，包括制造业，遥感和医学。该仪器将有助于回答一些关键问题：1）通过星系团速度探测修正的引力，这可能会极大地改变我们对广义相对论的看法; 2）在新的机制中探测早期宇宙膨胀，这有可能改变我们对高能物理和量子引力的理解; 3）通过CMB偏振、引力透镜和星系团对中微子质量和和宇宙学参数进行高信噪比测量; 4）通过与下一代光学巡天（如大型综合巡天望远镜）的互相关，对暗能量有更强的约束。

The researcher will build a new instrument to study the most distant signals arriving on Earth, the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). These faint radio signals are thought to originate from the Hot Big Bang at the beginning of the Universe. The expansion of the Universe has shifted these signals from the very hot initial conditions down the faint and cold signal we observe today. The researcher plans to design and construct a new, much more sensitive, instrument for investigation of the CMB. With students, the investigator will mount this instrument on a radio telescope and address the most important questions in cosmology and physics, measuring special features of the radio signals and comparing the data to predictions of quantum gravity and general relativity. The investigator's plan also includes activities aimed at educating the public, with activities for community members with diverse backgrounds and education levels. The outreach effort includes adding experiments to a high-school level lending library and creating videos showing their instrument under construction and in use. Because of the high sensitivity instrument to be built, the efforts funded by this award may also eventually have application to a number of technological areas, including manufacturing, remote sensing and medicine. The instrument will help answer a number of critical questions: 1) probing modified gravity via galaxy cluster velocities that could dramatically alter our view of general relativity; 2) probing the early universe inflation in new regimes, which have the potential to transform our understanding of high-energy physics and quantum gravity; 3) make high signal-to-noise measurements of the neutrino mass sum and cosmological parameters via CMB polarization, gravitational lensing, and galaxy clusters; and 4) stronger constraints on dark energy via cross-correlations with next generation optical surveys (such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope).