Dear London Cosmologists,
Imperial's cosmology seminat this Friday 17th November will be from
Anze Slosar. He'll be speaking about Reionization.
Room: 503 Huxley Building
Time: 12 noon
Abstract:
After the radiation decoupling at redshift of around z~1200, the
universe recombined and entered the so-called "dark ages". These
lasted until first stars switched on at the redshift of about 20-50.
These early sources emitted enough photons that the universe
eventually reionised at redshift around 6-10. The details of the
processes involved are a tough problem: both theoretically and
experimentally. On the theoretical side, considerable progress can
be made by simple analytical models guided by intuition from
numerical simulations. On experimental side we will be able to
constrain models using a plethora of methods: redshifted 21cm, IR
light, CMB polarisation and potentially even Sunayev Zeldovich
signal. Once reionisation is understood, we will be able to constrain
many exciting possibilities, such as decaying dark matter or cosmic
string contributions.
Joe Zuntz
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