DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM | Achieving 1% Measurements of Cosmological Distances with Cosmic Sound

Measuring the accelerated expansion of the Universe with the goal of better understanding its underlying physics is one of the leading programs in cosmology today. The baryon acoustic oscillation technique is one of the foremost tools in our toolbox today. This talk will explain the underlying physics of this method and the reasons it is extremely robust to observational and theoretical systematic errors. I will then present the latest results from the SDSS and BOSS surveys, currently the most precise distance constraints from this method. These will include a new analysis technique to undo the effects of the nonlinear evolution of the density field and partially "reconstruct" the initial density field.

Department Colloquia listings for Winter 2014.