Senior Associate, KICP
Professor, Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Email:
- sdodelso@uchicago.edu
- Website:
- ERC 483
Background
I am interested in learning about fundamental physics by analyzing data from cosmic surveys. We have pieced together a remarkably successful cosmological model, but it requires three new pieces of physics: dark matter, dark energy, and inflation. My perception of the goal of cosmology over the coming decades is to extract as much information as possible from increasingly sensitive surveys to either learn about this new physics (What is the dark matter? Is the dark energy vacuum energy? If so, why does it have such a peculiar value? Did inflation really happen? If so, is there any way to relate the fields that drove inflation to those we know about today?) or replace the current model.
I served as co-chair of the Science Committee for the Dark Energy Survey, am actively involved in the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration, and work with data from the South Pole Telescope. The thread connecting these observations to underlying theories requires us to understand the data well, phenomenological modeling of the astrophysics and cosmological perturbations, and the possible theoretical alternatives to what is slowly becoming dogma. It is a privilege and pleasure to work with colleagues around the world as we tackle these age-old questions with data sets that are truly extraordinary.
The second and third editions of Modern Cosmology, now co-authored with Fabian Schmidt, have a running list of errata here: https://gitlab.mpcdf.mpg.de/fabians/modcosmology-corrections/-/blob/master/Corrections.md Please contact Fabian or me with corrections.