How Can We Find the Cause of the Accelerated Expansion of the Universe?

Abstract information

Galaxies keep drifting apart from one another. This is because the universe is expanding in an accelerated way. It is mostly composed of matter and thus the acceleration should slow down because matter carries gravity and gravity is a force which pulls, but does not push, if one neglects the cosmological constant. This is not the case and it is currently assumed that this accelerated expansion is caused by dark energy. MATTEO MATURI and his research group investigate the cause of this phenomenon. As he describes in this video, they approached the problem by observing galaxy clusters with optical telescopes. Once they find clusters, they can use them to trace the evolution of these cosmic structures. The researchers have already applied their method to existing data and managed to find 1800 clusters. They are in the process of implementing their method in the pipeline of the Euclid Space Mission and hope to obtain a better understanding of accelerated expansion and of dark energy if this indeed turns out to be its cause.

Researcher

Matteo Maturi is permanent staff member at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at Heidelberg University. He also collaborates with the Euclid Consortium, which has the single scientific responsibility for ESA’s Euclid mission. He has worked on the implementation of the ‘Adaptive Identifier for Clustered Objects’ and as co-coordinator of the ‘Weak Lensing Selected Clusters’ for the Consortium. Currently, his research interests include galaxy clusters and cosmology, gravitational lensing, the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Effect and signal extraction with filtering techniques.

Institution information

Heidelberg University (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg)

“Heidelberg University, founded in 1386, is Germany’s oldest university and one of the strongest research universities in all of Europe. The successes in both rounds of the Excellence Initiative and in internationally recognised rankings prove that Heidelberg’s excellent reputation and leading role in the scientific community are well deserved. In terms of educating students and promoting promising early-career academics, Heidelberg relies on research-based teaching and an outstanding, well-structured training for doctoral candidates. Heidelberg University is a comprehensive university, offering the full spectrum of disciplines in the humanities, law and the social sciences alongside the natural and life sciences, including medicine. As a comprehensive university, Heidelberg aims to continue to strengthen the individual disciplines and to further interdisciplinary cooperation, as well as to carry research results over into society and industry. With its aspiration of connecting traditional values with future-oriented scientific concepts in research and teaching, the university is building bridges to the future – Zukunft. Seit 1386.” ( Source )
Heidelberg University (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg)

Original Publication

AMICO: Optimised Detection of Galaxy Clusters in Photometric Surveys

Searching for Galaxy Clusters in the Kilo-Degree Survey

M. Radovich,

E. Puddu,

F. Bellagamba,

M. Roncarelli,

L. Moscardini,

Published in

Citation

Matteo Maturi, 

Latest Thinking, 

How Can We Find the Cause of the Accelerated Expansion of the Universe?, 

Credits:

© Matteo Maturi

and Latest Thinking

This work is licensed under CC-BY 4.0