Seminar

Las mañanas IFCA: "Towards the Cosmic Dark Ages: mapping the Universe with radio and microwave experiments"

 ​​​"Towards the Cosmic Dark Ages: mapping the Universe with radio and microwave experiments​"

Astrophysicists have been able to map the nearby Universe using galaxy and quasar surveys, and the high-redshift Universe via the Cosmic Microwave background. However, the vast majority of the Universe remains largely unexplored. Questions such as how the first stars formed during Cosmic Dawn and what the Universe was like during the Cosmic Dark Ages, when there were no stars, remain largely unanswered. The difficulty of extracting information from a period in which there was no starlight is a real challenge. Nevertheless, the Universe was not empty; it contained matter, in its majority in the form of neutral hydrogen (HI). In this talk, I will present two distinct methods to map the Universe using a novel technique called HI Line Intensity Mapping and weak gravitational lensing of CMB photons. The combination of both techniques is key to probing epochs of the Universe that remain poorly understood.

​Miguel Ruiz Granda uses radio and microwave observations to map the Universe. He has been a PhD student working in the Observational Cosmology and Instrumentation group since 2023. He holds degrees in both Physics and Mathematics, as well as a Master’s degree in Particle Physics and Physics of the Cosmos all from the University of Cantabria.​