Fundamental Cosmology from First Principles: The Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure for Next-Generation Cosmological Experiments

by Dr Shi-Fan Stephen Chen (Institute for Advanced Study)

Thursday 13 Mar 2025, 11:00 → 12:00 America/Los_Angeles

48/2-224 - Madrone (SLAC)

With the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) well into its five-year run and first imaging and CMB data from the Rubin Observatory (LSST) and the Simons Observatory (SO) imminent, we are entering an unprecedented new regime in precision cosmology. Simultaneously, the past decade has seen significant advances in the modeling of cosmological structure formation from first principles, particularly by leveraging techniques from effective field theory (EFT) to consistently account for the impact of complex astrophysical effects like star formation and active galactic nuclei. Indeed, the so-called “EFT of Large-Scale Structure” has become the technique of choice for extracting fundamental physics from spectroscopic surveys like DESI. In this talk I will review some of these developments, including the analysis of first-year DESI data, and argue that the same techniques can be extended to analyze upcoming data from surveys like LSST and SO while shedding light on key current unknowns from the nature of dark energy to the cosmic alignments of galaxy shapes. I will also discuss synergies between these techniques and simulations-based methods in cosmology, and how both will be necessary to conduct the most optimal and robust searches for fundamental physics in upcoming data.

 

Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android:https://stanford.zoom.us/j/99408454004?pwd=wU98A9cTZQPouJlfr6osbCMnaGbRZo.1

    Password: 659873

 

Or iPhone one-tap (US Toll): +18333021536,,99408454004# or +16507249799,,99408454004#