[astroseminar at Sapienza] zoom for today's seminar at 16:00 in Aula Majorana: Patricio Gallardo

[Elia Battistelli]

zoom room: https://uniroma1.zoom.us/j/8531768909

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 
currently observing 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/