Title: LSST and the physics of the dark universe

Speaker: Prof. Anthony Tyson(University of California, Davis; LSST Project Manager)

Host: Prof. ZHANG Shuangnan

Time: 10:30AM, August 30, 2012

Place: Room C305, IHEP Main Building

Abstract:

The physics that underlies the accelerating cosmic expansion is unknown. This, “dark energy” and the equally mysterious “dark matter” comprise 96% of the mass-energy of the universe and are outside the standard model. Recent advances in optics, detectors, and information technology, has led to the design of a facility that will repeatedly image an unprecedented volume of the universe: LSST. For the first time, the sky will be surveyed wide, deep and fast. The history of astronomy has taught us repeatedly that there are surprises whenever we view the sky in a new way. I will review the technology of LSST, and focus on several independent probes of the nature of dark energy and dark matter. These new investigations will rely on the statistical precision obtainable with billions of galaxies.

About the speaker:

Tony Tyson is Distinguished Professor of Physics at University of California, Davis. Before that, he worked 35 years at Bell Labs in the physics division. While applying CCDs to astronomy in the early 1980’s he discovered a population of faint blue galaxies, and then pioneered the field of weak gravitational lensing using these distant galaxies as sources. His current research is in cosmology: dark matter distribution, gravitational lens effects, cosmic shear, and the nature of dark energy. Since 2000 he has directed the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope project.

Tyson received his B.S. in Physics from Stanford in l962 and Ph.D. in condensed matter physics from University of Wisconsin in 1967. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.