Probing Fundamental Physics on Cosmological Scales

该奖项资助新泽西州普林斯顿高等研究所Matias Zaldarriaga教授的研究活动。在过去的几十年里，由于地面和太空望远镜的一系列测量，我们对宇宙的了解急剧增加，这些测量已经绘制了我们可观测宇宙中大部分物质的分布。我们有一个非常详细的宇宙学标准模型，可以解释这些观测结果，但要做到这一点，需要宇宙中充满了额外的成分，比如所谓的暗物质和暗能量，这些都是在实验室里看不到的。为了理解这些发现，人们正在建造一套新的望远镜，并计划在接下来的十年里进行专门的观测项目。在他的研究中，Zaldarriaga教授的目标是开发和扩展必要的工具，以提取即将进行的调查和实验中可用的所有信息。受资助的研究还涉及一系列理论项目，以提高我们对早期宇宙的理解，暗物质和暗能量的特性，以及大质量中微子对宇宙结构演变的影响。因此，该项目促进了美国基础科学的发展，符合国家利益。预计该项目还将产生更广泛的重大影响。Zaldarriaga教授将让研究生和博士后参与这项研究，从而为在该领域开始研究的初级物理学家提供重要的培训。Zaldarriaga教授还打算继续就他的研究成果发表公开演讲，并在普林斯顿老年资源中心的常青论坛上为老年人开设现代宇宙学讲座。更技术性的是，Zaldarriaga教授将使用所谓的大规模结构有效理论来研究中微子在宇宙结构发展中的作用，并在总体上试图理解两点相关函数和更高点统计的哪些特性对后期非线性演化具有鲁棒性。Zaldarriaga教授将开发新技术来寻找原始非高斯性，这是关于早期宇宙的重要信息来源之一，并将探索在早期宇宙中产生引力波的新机制和试图找到引力波的新探测器。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award funds the research activities of Professor Matias Zaldarriaga at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. In the last decades our understanding of the Universe has increased dramatically as a result of a series of measurements by telescopes on the ground and in space that have mapped the distribution of matter in a large fraction of our observable Universe. We have a very detailed standard model of Cosmology that can explain these observations, but to do so requires that the cosmos be filled with additional components, such as the so-called dark matter and dark energy, that have not been seen in the laboratory. To try to understand these findings, a new set of telescopes are being constructed and dedicated observational programs are being planned for the upcoming decade. In his research, Professor Zaldarriaga aims to develop and expand the necessary tools to extract all the information available in the upcoming surveys and experiments. The funded research also involves a series of theoretical projects to improve our understanding of the very early Universe, the properties of dark matter and dark energy, as well as the effects of massive neutrinos on the evolution of structure in our Universe. As such, this project is in the national interest by furthering the development of basic science in the United States. This project is also envisioned to have significant broader impacts. Professor Zaldarriaga will involve graduate students and postdocs in this research, and thereby provide critical training for junior physicists beginning research in this field. Professor Zaldarriaga also intends to continue to give public lectures on his research results and run his lecture course on modern Cosmology for seniors at the Evergreen Forum of the Princeton Senior Resource center.More technically, Professor Zaldarriaga will use the so-called Effective theory of Large-Scale Structure to study the effects of neutrinos in the development of structure in the Universe, and in general to try to understand what properties of the two-point correlation function and higher-point statistics are robust against the late-time non-linear evolution. Professor Zaldarriaga will develop new techniques to search for primordial non-Gaussianity, one of the important sources of information about the very early Universe, and will explore new mechanisms to create gravitational waves in the early Universe and new probes to try to find them.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.