Scientific Seminars

Multi-Wavelength Synergies To Test the Fundaments of Cosmology

Stefano Camera
Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Manchester

2015-12-09    11:00    Merate - POE

In this talk, I shall review the innovative techniques that will allow next-generation experiments to tackle some of the most fundamental questions of contemporary cosmology: the nature of gravity, inflation, dark energy and dark matter. On the one hand, oncoming experiments such as Euclid or the SKA will, for the first time, open a window onto the largest cosmic scales. Such scales, near or above the horizon, are uncontaminated by the non-linear growth of structure and by baryonic/astrophysics feedback, which is difficult to model. They can teach us about inflation and the physics of the early Universe, and allow us to further confirm or rule out Einstein's theory of gravity on cosmological distances, as there are relativistic effects which only become detectable on those extremely large scales. On the other hand, novel multi-wavelength synergies will enable us to lift degeneracies in the dark sector. For instance, by cross-correlating the extragalactic gamma-ray background with weak gravitational lensing, we shall be able to disentangle, in the diffuse gamma-ray emission, the tiny contribution due to annihilations or decays of dark matter particles to the overwhelming background of unresolved astrophysical sources.