Deciphering the Cosmos: Insights from the Building Blocks of Galaxies
The Cosmic Microwave Background, the afterglow of the Big Bang, holds answers to fundamental questions of our universe. This light travels through the challenging terrain of the Galaxy’s Interstellar Medium—a cosmic concoction of dust and magnetic fields that veils the signals from the cosmic dawn. In this pivotal era, my research harnesses the power of cosmological datasets to peel away this veil, offering a clearer view of the cosmos by understanding the very medium that obscures it.
Yet, the universe holds more enigmas, with dark matter—the predominant yet unknown component of our Galaxy—posing one of the most formidable challenges. My research spearheads the application of next-generation telescopes to refine astrophysical probes like gravitational strong lensing into a precise instrument for dissecting dark matter halos. This approach offers the leading constraints in the exploration of various classes of dark matter, ranging from warm to self-interacting variants, placing it at the vanguard of efforts to elucidate the nature of dark matter.
COMPETITIONS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A STUDENT
Competitions create an educational opportunity for students of all backgrounds. In this talk I will discuss data that shows that by participating in competitions, students can learn to feel like scientists, get to know interesting peers from other countries, learn from each other, solve fun challenges, learn the value of teamwork, and have an overall fun and rewarding experience. Awareness of the existence of the competitions can motivate a student to start learning the subject, and good results in competitions have resulted in college admission and retention of interest in research.
STARDUST AND COSMOLOGY
STARDUST AND COSMOLOGY
In this talk I discuss the topic and results based of my work for my PhD thesis.
Over the past 30 years, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) has profoundly influenced our understanding of the history of our universe and ushered in an era of precision cosmology. The spatial anisotropy (both polarized and unpolarized) has been the focus of both experiment and theory, and has driven the field forward. One of the next frontiers of CMB science is the spectral distortion of the CMB. Primordial spectral distortions of the CMB are sensitive to energy injection by exotic physics in the early universe. The proposed Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE) mission has the raw sensitivity to provide meaningful limits on new physics, but only if foreground emission can be adequately modeled. In this thesis, I analyse the impact of including galactic dust and cosmic infrared background modeling on CMB spectral distortion detection, while still expecting PIXIE to constrain synchrotron, free-free emission, and the spectral distortion from the blackbody temperature deviation.
In order to adequately model the dust foreground, I also focus on exploring the properties of galactic dust. Dust is an important component of the interstellar medium, forming structures in the space between the stars in our galaxy. The size and composition of dust grains is spatially variable within our galaxy, and possibly across cosmic time. We have ideas about the chief constituents of dust, but detailed knowledge is elusive. I study the effect of variations in dust size distribution and composition on the correlation between the spectral shape of extinction (parameterized by RV and far-infrared dust emissivity (parameterized by the power-law index β).
Finally, for this thesis, I create the first large-scale 3 dimensional map of the temperature of the dust in the interstellar medium. Having a better understanding of the 3D dust can help us characterize the 3D structure of the magnetic field, and compute the six-dimensional phase-space density of the interstellar radiation field (the amount of light in every 3D voxel, in every direction, at every energy).
GPT4 and More
Dylan Jow, Vasilii Pustovoit, Connor Stone and myself had a session at CITA on “GPT4 and more”, where will talk about the use cases we have found for GPT4 and Co. for research, in July 2023.
Topics covered: a brief introduction to large language models, prompt engineering, coding (GPT4 vs Copilot, debugging, code generation, documentation), analytical calculations, learning (exploring concepts, searching for references), ethical considerations, writing, translation, as well as other applications (APIs,command line GPTs, Code Interpreter etc.)
Videouri in Limba Romana/Outreach Talks in Romanian
Dezvăluind secretele compoziției universului
O prezentare tinuta in cadrul Romanian Science Festival.
Secretele ascunse ale materiei întunecate și ale galaxiei noastre pot fi dezvăluite studiind fenomene precum praful cosmic sau lentilele gravitaționale. Aceste fenomene sunt studiate de către astrofizicieni pentru a deslușii compoziția și formarea universului. Va povesteasc despre cele mai recente cercetări, dar și despre cât de aproape suntem de înțelegerea universului în care trăim.
Află răspunsuri la întrebări precum…
❓Ce sunt lentilele gravitaționale?
❓Ce este materia întunecată?
❓Ce este praful cosmic?
❓Și care este impactul materiei întunecate asupra formării și evoluției galaxiilor?
DE CE EDUCAIA STEM?
Un video parte din campania de promovare a educatiei stem in scolile Romaniei, desfasurata de organizatia Ucenicul astronom
In videoul acesta raspund scurt la 4 intrebari:
Cine Sunt?
De ce STEM?
Cine m-a inspirat?
Provocari, obstacole?
Multumiri lui Christopher McKenzie pentru inregistrare si editare
Many thanks to Christopher McKenzie for recording and editing.