What's New in 2018

2018

December 21–January 9

Winter break. No laptop, no email.

  • 12/21: HND(12:40)-TSA(15:50)
  • 12/22-25: Taipei
  • 12/26: TSA(13:30)-HND-ITM(20:15)
  • 12/26-1/1: Takarazuka 
  • 1/2-1/8: Fukushima
  • 1/9: HND(12:35)-MUC(16:45)

December 18–20

Tokyo

  • 12/18-19: MUC(20:00)-HND(15:40)

December 8–14

PFS Collaboration Meeting in Shanghai Jiao Tong University

  • 12/8-9: MUC(22:25)-PVG(16:35)
  • 12/13-14: PVG(23:55)-MUC(5:25)

November 26–29

External Advisory Committee meeting for Simons Observatory at Simons Foundation, NY

  • 11/26: MUC(15:40)-EWR(19:05)
  • 11/28-29: EWR(20:50)-MUC(10:20)

November 6–8

The Zurich Physics colloquium at Universität Zürich and ETH Zürich

  • 11/6: MUC(9:35)-ZRH(10:35)
  • 11/7: Give a colloquium on “Critical Tests of Theory of the Early Universe using the Cosmic Microwave Background” [video]
    • Abstract: The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) gives a photographic image of the Universe when it was still an "infant". Its detailed measurements have given us a wealth of information such as the composition and history of the Universe. We are now using it to test our ideas about the origin of the Universe. I will review the physics of CMB and the key results from the recent experiments, and discuss future prospects on our quest to find the cosmic origins.
  • 11/8: ZRH(17:10)-MUC(18:05)

October 1–31

Paris for “Analytics, Inference, and Computation in Cosmology”

  • 10/1: MUC(9:25)-CDG(10:55)
  • 10/15-17: Give 90min x 3 lectures on the CMB at Laboratoire de l'Accélérateur Linéaire, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France [Poster] [video]
    • Abstract: In these lectures we will cover the basic physics of temperature and polarisation anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In particular, we will focus on the primordial anisotropies coming from the early Universe, when the age of the Universe was approximately 400,000 years old. The temperature and polarisation anisotropies are generated by sound waves (scalar modes) and gravitational waves (tensor modes). We will aim at understanding the physics of the CMB anisotropies using an intuitive, but still accurate, approach. Dependence of the CMB temperature anisotropy from sound waves on the cosmological parameters including the number of neutrinos will be fully explained. The meaning of the so-called E and B-mode polarisation will be clarified, and how the sound waves and gravitational waves generate these polarisation modes will be explained intuitively.
  • 10/25: Give a talk on “How to do the 3x2pt analysis of SZ and galaxies” at the workshop on Statistical Inference [10:30-11:15] [video]
  • 10/31: CDG(15:40)-MUC(17:05)

September 19–22

Firenze, for “Towards the European Coordination of the CMB Programme” 

September 4–8

Princeton, for PFS Science Meeting

  • 9/4: MUC(16:10)-EWR(18:55)
  • 9/7-8: EWR(20:45)-MUC(10:35)

August 26–31

COSMO-18, Daejeon, Korea

  • 8/26-27: MUC(15:00)-FRA-ICN(11:20); Airport Lumousine bus to Daejeon
  • 8/28: Give a talk on “Non-Gaussian gravitational waves from inflation”  [30 min; 11:00-11:30] video [2:00:00 to 2:34:00]
    • Abstract: It has been widely assumed that detection of primordial gravitational waves from inflation in, for example, B-mode polarisation of the cosmic microwave background, immediately implies discovery of the quantum nature of spacetime. While this statement is true for the vacuum solution, it does not apply if the gravitational waves originate from the matter fields. How can we distinguish between these two origins? The answer is non-Gaussinaity. We show that the gravitational waves from SU(2) gauge fields coupled to a spectator axion field during inflation are highly non-Gaussian with a characteristic shape, whereas those from the vacuum are only weakly non-Gaussian. 
  • 8/31: ICN(10:15)-MUC(14:15)

August 11–25

Vacation. Will be disconnected from internet completely. No emails. No laptop. Nothing.

July 23–28

International school on the “Large-scale Structure of the Universe” at Harnackhaus, Berlin-Dahlem

  • 7/23: MUC(7:00)-TXL(8:05)
  • 7/28: TXL(18:00)-MUC(19:10)

July 12,13

RWTH Aachen

July 6,7

“Forefronts in Cosmology and Numerical General Relativity” at Schloss Leopoldskron, Salzburg

June 17–22

Summer School on Cosmology 2018, ICTP, Trieste

  • 6/17: MUC(11:35)-TRS(12:30)
  • 6/18-21: Give 75min x 4 lectures on the CMB
  • 6/22: TRS(13:05)-MUC(14:00)

June 14

Excellence Cluster evaluation at Kranz Parkhotel, Siegburg [8:30-11:00]

  • Siegburg/Bonn(11:43)-München Hbf(16:07)

June 12,13

CPT Sektionssitzung, Heidelberg

  • 6/12: München Hbf(16:04)-Heidelberg Hbf(19:10)
  • 6/13: Heidelberg Hbf(19:10)-Mannheim Hbf(19:24); Mannheim Hbf(19:36)-Siegburg/Bonn(20:46)

June 11–July 6

MIAPP workshop on “The extragalactic distance scale in the Gaia era”, Excellence Cluster, München

June 7

ETH, Zürich for PhD exam of Andrina Nicola

June 1

 “The 3rd Physics and Applied Physics Seminar in Germany for Japanese Researchers” at MPA, Garching [11:40-17:15]

May 29,30

Universität zu Köln

May 16-18

Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium

May 8,9

Astronomy and Astrophysics Reviews Editorial Board meeting, Heidelberg

  • 5/8: München Hbf (11:47)-Heidelberg Hbf (14:44)
  • 5/9: Heidelberg Hbf (15:14)-München Hbf (18:11)

May 2-4

Manchester, UK

  • 5/2: MUC(8:00)-FRA-MAN(10:50)
  • 5/2: Colloquium on "Mapping Hot Gas in the Universe using the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect” [15:00]
    • Abstract: Hot, thermal electrons in galaxy clusters up-scatter the cosmic microwave background photons, making clusters visible in the microwave sky. This effect, known as the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, has been detected routinely toward individual galaxy clusters. Since the SZ effect is proportional to a projected thermal pressure of gas, we can use this effect to map all hot gas pressure in the Universe in projection. We start this talk by presenting the first image of the SZ effect obtained by ALMA, which has the highest spatial (both angular and physical) resolution ever achieved for the SZ mapping observations. With such a high resolution map comparable to X-ray maps, this SZ map enables us to study astrophysics of galaxy clusters in a new way. The second part of the talk concerns a full-sky map of the SZ effect. Thanks to its multi-frequency coverage from space, ESA's Planck satellite has produced, for the first time, a full-sky map of the SZ effect. Statistics of this map, such as one-point PDF and the power spectrum, provides a powerful test of our theory for structure formation in the Universe. Unlike gravitational lensing of the CMB, which probes structure formation of the total matter, the statistics of the SZ effect tests our understanding of baryonic structure formation on large scales. We present state-of-the-art simulation of the SZ effect, and discuss what we learned from comparing the simulation with the Planck data. In the last part of the talk, we present a new result on the cross-correlation of the hot gas map and a full-sky map of galaxy distribution from 2MASS, showing how gas traces galaxies in the local Universe.
  • 5/4: MAN(10:45)-MUC(13:45)

April 24–27

Collaboration meeting of the LiteBIRD mission, MPA, Garching

April 16–21

Berlin

April 6

Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, France

  • 4/6: MUC(6:35)-MRS(8:10)
  • 4/6: Colloquium on “Finding Cosmic Inflation” at 11:00 video
    • Abstract: The cosmic microwave background (CMB) research told us a remarkable story: the structure we see in our Universe such as galaxies, stars, planets, and eventually ourselves originated from tiny quantum fluctuations generated in the early Universe. With the WMAP we have confirmed many of the key predictions of inflation including flatness and statistical homogeneity of our Universe, Gaussianity and adiabaticity of primordial density fluctuations, and a small but non-zero deviation from the scale-invariant spectrum of density fluctuations. Yet, the extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence. The last prediction of inflation that is yet to be confirmed is the existence of primordial gravitational waves whose wavelength can be as big as billions of light years. To this end we have proposed to JAXA a new satellite mission called "LiteBIRD", whose primary scientific goal is to find signatures of gravitational waves in the polarisation of the CMB. In this presentation we describe the current state of affairs regarding our understanding of the early Universe, physics of polarisation of CMB, and the LiteBIRD proposal.
  • 4/7: MRS(13:45)-MUC(15:20)

March 28

ミュンヘン日本人会教養講座, “宇宙の始まり、そして終わり” [18:30-20:30]

March 19–23

HETDEX Collaboration Meeting, MPE, Garching

March 12–16

CERN for “Probing Fundamental Physics with Spectral Distortions” 

February 22,23

CPTS Sektionssitzung, Berlin-Dahlem

  • 2/21: KIX(11:00)-FRA(15:00); FRA(16:45)-TXL(17:55)
  • 2/23: TXL(14:30)-MUC(15:40)

February 13–20

Kyoto, Japan

February 8–12

Sendai, Japan

January 31, February 1

“CMB in Germany” meeting at MPA, Garching

January 22,23

Université Paris-sud

  • 1/22: MUC(9:45)-CDG(11:20)
  • 1/23: CDG(11:50)-MUC(13:15)

January 17–19

Workshop on “AtLAST” at ESO, Garching

January 2–11

Fukushima. Will not be opening a laptop, or reading emails!!

  • 1/2: ITM(13:30)-SDJ(14:40)
  • 1/11: HND(12:45)-MUC(16:55)
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