Testing gravity using data from the Euclid satellite mission

One of the biggest mysteries in modern physics is “dark energy”. This strange form of energy makes up over half of our Universe and is causing space to expand faster and faster. Even 30 years after its Nobel Prize-winning discovery, we still have no clear idea what dark energy actually is. Scientists have come up with many different theories to explain dark energy in the last decades. Additionally, new telescopes have been constructed to explore larger parts of the Universe than ever before. These telescopes are now starting to gather huge amounts of data about millions of galaxies, giving us a unique opportunity to test new dark-energy theories. This process requires novel data analysis methods based on powerful machine learning tools that we will develop in this project. The internship combines the skills from theory specialists of the University of Edinburgh with the data-analysis experts from the University of Waterloo.
These newly developed methods will be used in two of the world’s biggest upcoming galaxy surveys: the European-led Euclid satellite mission and the North American DESI instrument. This internship brings together teams from both sides of the Atlantic to solve one of the largest puzzles in our Universe.

Faculty Supervisor:

Will Percival

Student:

Partner:

University of Edinburgh

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Waterloo

Program: