[astroseminar at Sapienza] July 9 at 16:00: Patricio Gallardo

[Elia Battistelli]

Title: Cosmic Microwave Background Experiments as a Laboratory for 
Fundamental Physics
Speaker: Patricio Gallardo
Institution: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of 
Pennsylvania
Date: Thursday July 9, 2026
Time: 4:00pm
Location: Aula Majorana, Dept. of Physics, Sapienza University

Abstract: Building on over a decade of rapid gains in cosmic microwave 
background (CMB) sensitivity, CMB surveys are now poised to map the 
millimeter sky with unprecedented depth at arcminute resolution. In this 
talk, I will discuss how the Simons Observatory (SO) is leading this 
charge, specifically through the Large Aperture Telescope and its 
upcoming receiver upgrade, Advanced SO. The SO survey, intends to 
observe the fine details in the CMB with increased sensitivity, probing 
the initial conditions of the early universe as well as the formation of 
structure due to the presence of gas and dark matter. I will highlight 
how these instrumental leaps enable two distinct searches for new 
physics: using the pairwise kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (kSZ) effect as 
a model-independent probe of the gravitational force law, and searching 
for parity-violating signatures of new particles through cosmic 
birefringence, the rotation of the CMB polarization as it travels from 
the surface of last scattering to us throughout the universe.

web: https://agenda.infn.it/event/52882/