Please join us in welcoming Ted Ressell as the new KICP Assistant Director starting January 3.

"Ted earned his PhD in astrophysics at Chicago and we are delighted to have him back. With his knowledge of cosmology and his management experience at the Law School, he will help the KICP reach even greater heights in research, outreach and training for students and postdocs."
- Michael Turner, Director of the PFC and KICP

Related Links:
KICP Members: M. Ted Ressell; Michael S. Turner

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Daniel Holz for being awarded a NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award. The CAREER award is presented to junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.

Professor Holz's research focuses on the interplay of general relativity, astrophysics, and cosmology. Recently he has been working on using gravitational waves and gravitational lensing as cosmological probes.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Daniel E. Holz

On February 20th, the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP) partnered with The Society of Women in Physics (SWIP) to hold "Pizza with Professors," a dinner and discussion about the joys and stresses of pursuing a career in physics. KICP professors and post-doctoral fellows joined faculty from the Physics department in sharing dinner and experiences with around 50 enthusiastic undergraduate physics majors. The event was held in the Kersten Family Atrium of the University's Gordon Center for the Integrative Sciences and participants left with a better appreciation of what a career in physics or a related field ultimately requires.

Marilena Loverde, who will be joining the KICP as a postdoc later this year, shows off another of her talents in the Washington Post's 5th Annual Peeps Diorama contest with her entry, "ATLAS Peeped."

"ATLAS Peeped", by Mark Trodden, Discover Magazine

Related Links:
KICP Members: Marilena LoVerde

KICP Fellow Elise Jennings and Graduate Students Chris Greer and Immanuel Buder recently shared their enthusiasm for Cosmology by participating in Project Exploration's Brothers and Sisters4Science programs at local schools.

Read more >>

Related Links:
KICP Members: Elise Jennings
KICP Students: Immanuel Buder; Christopher Greer

Photos: SAIC SPT exhibit; South Pole Telescope assembly by Jason Smith

As part of our ongoing partnership with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), students in an Architecture, interior architecture and designed objects (AAIDO) studio course designed and constructed a portable exhibit about the South Pole Telescope. This installation pays homage to the 100 years of exploration and discovery at the South Pole and to the most recent scientific achievements of SPT.
Visual imagery provides a glimpse into life and research at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Interactive components include a backdrop of the ceremonial South Pole and Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear photo op and a multi-touch table that encourages self-guided exploration of images, videos and data. The first destination for the exhibit is the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington DC (April 27-29) where Tom Plagge, Tyler Natoli and Kyle Story will represent the SPT science team. Other planned deployments include The World Science Festival Street Fair and special events at SAIC.

Related Links:
KICP Members: John E. Carlstrom; Randall H. Landsberg; Tom Plagge; Kathryn K. Schaffer; Mark Subbarao
KICP Students: Leul Bezane; Lindsey E. Bleem; Abigail T. Crites; Tyler Natoli; Kyle Story
Scientific projects: South Pole Telescope (SPT)

Congratulations to Hao Huan for successfully defending his PhD dissertation on "Cosmic Gamma-Ray Propagation as a Probe for Intergalactic Media and Interactions."

Hao has received a researcher position at the Teza Technologies.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Scott P. Wakely
KICP Students: Hao Huan
Scientific projects: Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS)

Congratulations to Immanuel Buder for successfully defending his PhD dissertation on "Measurement of the CMB Polarization at 95 GHz from QUIET."

Immanuel has received a postdoctoral fellow position at Harvard College Observatory.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Stephan S. Meyer
KICP Students: Immanuel Buder
Scientific projects: Q/U Imaging ExperimenT (QUIET)

I am pleased to report that Angela Olinto has accepted appointment as Chair of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics for a term of three years, effective October 1, 2012.
Thank you Angela! You can count on the support of us all!

- Rocky Kolb
Chair of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics

Related Links:
KICP Members: Edward W. Kolb; Angela V. Olinto

KICP is pleased to announce that Elise Jennings has been awarded a Springer Thesis Prize for her thesis "Simulations of Dark Energy Cosmologies".

Simulations of Dark Energy Cosmologies
A major outstanding problem in physics is understanding the nature of the dark energy that is driving the accelerating expansion of the Universe. This thesis makes a significant contribution by demonstrating, for the first time, using state-of-the-art computer simulations, that the interpretation of future galaxy survey measurements is far more subtle than is widely assumed, and that a major revision to our models of these effects is urgently needed. The work contained in the thesis was used by the WiggleZ dark energy survey to measure the growth rate of cosmic structure in 2011 and had a direct impact on the design of the surveys to be conducted by the European Space Agency's Euclid mission, a 650 million euro project to measure dark energy.

Springer Theses Award
Springer Theses is restricted to truly outstanding original work that makes a substantial contribution to research in its field. The author of each thesis accepted into the series will receive a prize of €500. Theses will be published both in print and in Springer's prominent eBook programme, thus becoming accessible to millions of readers worldwide through SpringerLink. The prestige and visibility associated with the prize-winning publication will help to further the career of deserving students.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Elise Jennings

Prof. Stephan S. Meyer will share the $500,000 award of the 2012 Gruber Cosmology Prize with NASA Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) lead Charles Bennett and other colleagues from the team.

The WMAP team used observations of the so-called "echo of the Big Bang," the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, to determine the universe's vital statistics - its age, content, geometry, and origin. This feat in turn has helped transform cosmology itself into a precision science.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Stephan S. Meyer
Scientific projects: Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)

Congratulations to Eva Wuyts for successfully defending her PhD dissertation on "A Magnified View of High Redshift Star Formation."

Related Links:
KICP Members: Michael D. Gladders
KICP Students: Eva Wuyts

Congratulations to Christopher Kelso for successfully defending his PhD dissertation on "Recent Results in Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments."

"Chris' research has been focused on dark matter, and interpretations of data from a number of underground experiments designed to search for it. Particularly exciting has been his work on dark matter interpretations of the signals reported by the CoGeNT, CRESST and DAMA experiments. While we cannot say for certain yet whether these experiments are seeing dark matter particles, Chris' work has certainly helped to make these experiments and their anomalous results a "hot topic" among particle physicists and cosmologists."
- Dan Hooper, PhD advisor

Christopher has received a postdoctoral scholar position at the University of Utah.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Daniel Hooper
KICP Students: Christopher M. Kelso

Congratulations to Samuel Leitner for successfully defending his PhD dissertation on "The Star Formation History of Disk Galaxies & Implications for Simulations."

"In his thesis paper Sam has derived star formation histories of galaxies, which are still forming stars now, using a variety of observations on how star formation rate depends on stellar mass of galaxies as a function of cosmic epoch. Remarkably, the results show that galaxies such as our Milky Way have formed more than 80% of their stars over the last ten billion years of the evolution, and less than 20% during the first three billion years. This result is at variance with most simulations of galaxy formation and may help to explain why simulations generally fail to produce late-type disk galaxies with small bulges. In his paper, Sam has also uncovered a curious discrepancy between the star formation histories of dwarf galaxies derived using the method he used and those deduced from the color-magnitude diagram of stars for nearby dwarfs."
- Andrey Kravtsov, PhD advisor

Samuel has received a Prize Postdoctoral fellow position in the Center for Theory and Computation at the University of Maryland.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Andrey V. Kravtsov
KICP Students: Samuel N. Leitner

Congratulations to Melanie Simet for successfully defending her PhD dissertation on "Galaxy cluster center detection methods with weak lensing."

"Melanie has studied weak gravitational lensing caused by galaxy clusters. She led the effort to measure this lensing signal in Stripe 82 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, with results that will help calibrate cluster masses and begin the community on the road to measuring tomography. For her thesis, Melanie studied the important effect that it is difficult to locate the true center of a galaxy cluster. This "mis-ceterning" problem leads to incorrect mass determinations. By using a combination of simulations and data from SDSS, Melanie quantified both the effect and various algorithms proposed to address it."
- Scott Dodelson, PhD advisor

Melanie has received a postdoctoral position at the Carnegie Mellon University.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Scott Dodelson
KICP Students: Melanie Simet
Scientific projects: Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)

Congratulations to KICP graduate student Christopher Williams, who was awarded a 2012 CCAPP Price Prize for his work on novel methods for the detection of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays, which include the MIcrowave Detection of Air Showers (MIDAS) experiment. The Price Prize is awarded annually to graduate students in recognition of research excellence in areas closely related to CCAPP science initiatives. The prize announcement states that "Williams is an experimentalist; he is working on new techniques to detect the highest-energy particles in the universe, seeking clues to their unknown origins." Winners spend an extended period visiting CCAPP, give a Price Prize seminar, and receive an honorarium.

Dr. Pliny A. and Margaret H. Price Prize in Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics

Related Links:
KICP Students: Christopher Williams
Scientific projects: Microwave Detection of Air Showers (MIDAS)

The Directors of the six Kavli Institutes in astrophysics -- Michael Turner, KICP; Jackie Hewitt, MKI at MIT; Roger Blandford, KIPAC at Stanford; George Efstathiou, KICC in Cambridge; Xiao-wei Liu, KIAA in Beijing; and Hitoshi Murayama, KIPMU in Japan -- met in Oslo, Norway during the Kavli Prize week to discuss new ways that the Kavli astrophysics institutes can cooperate.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Michael S. Turner

The MIDAS (MIcrowave Detection of Air Showers) experiment has been recently installed at the Pierre Auger Observatory in Malargue, Argentina. MIDAS employs a novel technique to detect ultra-high energy cosmic rays, based on microwave emission from the cosmic ray shower developing in the atmosphere. Results from a prototype telescope, which was mounted at the 4.5 meter parabolic dish on the roof of the Kersten Physics Teaching Center at the University of Chicago, have been recently published on Physical Review D. Following the successful run in Chicago, the MIDAS camera and electronics were disassembled and shipped to Argentina, where simultaneous detection of ultra-high energy cosmic rays with the Pierre Auger Observatory will be pursued. Former KICP fellow Pedro Facal and graduate student Chris Williams traveled to Argentina between August and September to deploy the instrument on a new 5 meter parabolic dish located close the Los Leones Fluorescence Detector. The installation was completed in three weeks, and commissioning and calibration of the telescope are undergoing. MIDAS will take data for about a year searching for events detected in coincidence with the Pierre Auger Observatory.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Pedro Facal; Paolo Privitera
KICP Students: Christopher Williams
Scientific projects: Microwave Detection of Air Showers (MIDAS)

Congratulations to Christopher Greer for successfully defending his PhD dissertation on "Calibrating Optical Richness using Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Observations."

"Chris Greer made critical contributions to the building and deploying of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Array (SZA), an interferometric array of 3.5 meter mm-wave telescopes located at the CARMA site in California. He used the SZA to image the SZ effect for a sample of galaxy clusters selected by their richness in the SDSS maxBCG cluster catalog. His thesis provides the first joint calibration of the SZ and optical mass-observable relation. This work is important for using cluster surveys for constraining cosmology, in particular the nature of dark energy, and it provides the ground work for the upcoming joint analysis of the large South Pole Telescope and Dark Energy Survey data sets."
- John Carlstrom, PhD advisor

Christopher has received a postdoctoral researcher position at Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona.

Related Links:
KICP Members: John E. Carlstrom
KICP Students: Christopher Greer

Robert Conn, President of the Kavli Foundation, visited The University of Chicago, and the KICP in particular, on November 14. During his visit, Dr. Conn met with many of the University's top officials, enjoyed a lunch with KICP Senior Members, and toured the KICP facility. His visit was capped off by a reception for all Kavli Institute members where the KICP Fellows as well as other members of the community presented their latest research results in a "shotgun" poster session.

The Division of Astrophysics of the American Physical Society selected KICP Associate Fellow Ryan Keisler as a recipient of their Early Career Recognition Award, the so-called "Young Stars Award." Keisler is a Hubble Fellow at the KICP at the University of Chicago. His research is focused on investigating physics beyond the standard model through detailed measurements and analysis of the cosmic microwave background and the growth of structure in the universe. He is a key member of the South Pole Telescope project, working on all aspects of the project from developing new instrumentation, to detailed cosmological analysis of the data. In recognition of the award, Keisler will be giving an invited lecture on his work at the April 2013 APS meeting in Denver, Colorado.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Ryan Keisler
Scientific projects: South Pole Telescope (SPT)

The DAMIC (DArk Matter In CCDs) experiment has been switched on in the SNOLAB Canadian Laboratory, 6800 feet underground. The installation of the 10 g detector involved members of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP) at the University of Chicago and of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. DAMIC employs 250 micron thick CCDs to measure nuclear recoils induced by the Weakly Interactive Massive Particles (WIMPs) that may constitute the mysterious dark matter in the Universe. The unprecedented low energy threshold of the experiment, 40 eV, is particularly well suited for the discovery of light mass WIMPs in the few GeV range. WIMPs in this mass range may explain results from the DAMA/LIBRA, CoGent and CRESST experiments. Nuclear recoils produce signals that are readily distinguishable from the background induced by cosmic rays and electromagnetic interactions, thanks to the 15 micron pixel size of the CCD. Privitera's group at KICP, including Fellow Alvaro Chavarria and graduate student Jing Zhou, is now working on the commissioning of the experiment and data analysis. The DAMIC experiment at SNOLAB is the first step towards a 100 g detector using the CCD technology.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Alvaro Chavarria; Paolo Privitera
KICP Students: Jing Zhou
Scientific projects: Dark Matter in CCDs (DAMIC)