Fabian Schmidt, Cosmologist

I'm a scientific staff member (Forschungsgruppenleiter) at the Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik (MPA), Garching (near Munich), Germany. I am interested in all aspects of cosmology, though I have also worked on weak gravitational lensing and cosmic ray physics.

Research

My research in cosmology deals with the question of what our Universe as a whole is made of, as well as its history and evolution. Two of the most pressing mysteries in cosmology are the nature of dark matter and dark energy, which appear to make up 96% of the Universe's current energy budget. We also want to unravel how the initial, small seed perturbations were generated in the primeval universe, which form the ultimate origin of all structure in the universe.

About me

Having grown up in Germany and the US, I did my undergraduate at Humboldt University, Berlin, graduating with a (Diplom) thesis on cosmic gamma rays. I then moved to Chicago for graduate school. You can find my CV here.

  • PhD (2005-2009), University of Chicago

    Advisors: Scott Dodelson, Wayne Hu

  • Moore Fellow (2009-2012), Caltech

    Sponsor: Marc Kamionkowski

  • NASA CXC Einstein Fellow (2012-2013), Princeton University

    Sponsor: David Spergel

  • Scientific staff, tenure track (2013-2016), MPA

    Physical Cosmology Division, Director: Eiichiro Komatsu

  • Permanent scientific staff (Forschungsgruppenleiter) (2017-), MPA

  • Publications

    arXiv
    InSpire
    PDF (not always uptodate)

  • CV

  • Group

    My group is currently funded by the Excellence cluster Origins, as well as institute funding.

    Ivana Babic

    PhD student (2020-). EFT-based BAO reconstruction.

    Julia Stadler

    Postdoc (2021-). Interferometric imaging; EFT-based forward models in large-scale structure.

    Beatriz Tucci

    PhD student (2021-). Simulation-based inference.

    Safak Celik

    PhD student (2023-). Dark matter.

    Ivana Nikolac

    PhD student (2023-). Simulation-based cosmology inference.

    Moritz Singhartinger

    MSc student TUM (2023-2024). Posterior of initial conditions in field-level inferences.

    Charalampos Nikolis

    MSc student LMU (2023-2024). EFT of LSS.

    Former Group Members

    Hiu-Yan (Sam) Ip

    Phd Student (2014-2018). Modified gravity, relativistic aspects of cosmology. Now at Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge.

    Titouan Lazeyras

    PhD student (2014-2018). Bias of dark matter halos, N-body simulations. Now at Physics Department, University of Milan.

    Franz Elsner

    Postdoc (2016-2018). Analysis of large data sets from CMB (Planck) and large-scale structure. Now at res mechanica.

    Alexandre Barreira

    Postdoc (2015-2020). N-body and hydro simulations of separate universes and modified gravity, covariance of cosmological power spectra, raytracing. Now at Excellence Cluster ORIGINS (TUM/LMU Munich).

    Giovanni Cabass

    Postdoc (2017-2020). CMB, large-scale structure and inflation. Now faculty at Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Zagreb.

    Minh Nguyen

    PhD student (2016-2020); Postdoc (2020-2021). Kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect and Bayesian inference from forward modeling using novel likelihood approaches. Now at LCTP, University of Michigan.

    Sam Goldstein

    Fulbright fellow (2021-2022). Dark energy constraints.Now PhD student at Columbia University, New York.

    Andrija Kostic

    PhD student (2020-2023), postdoc (2023). Bayesian inference in cosmology. Now at DeepL.

    Linda Blot

    Postdoc (2019-2023). Large-scale structure, dark energy, simulations.Now project assistant professor at Kavli IPMU, University of Tokyo.

    Job opportunities

    In case you are interested in joining my group as a student or postdoc, please see the information below.

    Students

    My students are members of the IMPRS (International Max Planck Research School on Astrophysics) at the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich. The online application can be found here (deadline: November 1 of each year).

    Postdocs

    MPA has openings for MPA fellowship positions which are announced on the AAS job register in October of every year. Applications to the MPA positions will also be considered for independently funded postdoc positions in my group.

    Internships

    Due to administrative and logistical hurdles, I do not accept internships from students who are not local (in the Munich/Garching area or nearby). For more explanation, see here.

    Modern Cosmology, Second Edition

    The second edition of Modern Cosmology has appeared in June 2020. See here.

    Contact

    • Address

      MPA
      Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1
      85748 Garching
      Germany
      Office: 281
    • Email

      fabians@mpa-garching.mpg.de
    • Phone

      +49 (0) 89 30000 2274