The Department of Astronomy at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) will host the CfA@USTC Junior Cosmology Symposium on “Gravitational Waves and Early Universe” from March 30th to April 2nd 2018 at Fengda International Hotel in Hefei. All scholars in fields of gravitational waves (GWs) and cosmology are mostly welcome.
Gravitational waves are ripples of the space-time, which were predicted by Einstein in 1916 from general relativity. Since the discovery of GWs announced by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a new window has been opened to explore the origin, structure and evolution of the Universe. It is expected that along with more GW signals, their sources and electromagnetic counterparts being discovered, the research on GW astronomy and cosmology will be greatly developed.
Paradigms of the early universe, such as inflation and bounce, can resolve conceptual issues of the hot big bang cosmology and explain the origin of the temperature anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as well as the formation of large-scale structure (LSS) of the Universe. They all are originated from quantum fluctuations in the primordial era, of which the scalar-type leads to primordial density fluctuations. The early universe models also predicted the tensor-type fluctuations, i.e., the PGWs. These tensor perturbations encode plentiful information about the early universe. Therefore, the study of PGWs does not only allow us to understand the dynamics of the early universe, but also may push our knowledge of the universe to the edge of quantum gravity right after the big bang.
Chinese scientists put forward various proposals in developing the study of GWs and early universe, including space-based projects “Taiji” and “Tianqin” as well as ground-based CMB polarization program “AliCPT”. Among them, the AliCPT will observe the CMB polarization signals in the northern hemisphere and provide the most accurate measurement for probing the PGWs in the northern sky map, thus providing a significant window to explore the early universe.
In order to improve the academic exchange of young scholars in relevant fields, we organize this symposium, during which we will address topics of GWs and early universe in forms of oral presentations and posters.
There is no registration fee for the symposium. All travel and local accommodations will be covered by the participants. We will be delighted to offer the room booking in the hotel at a discount price.
Organizing committee: Yi-Fu Cai, Wenjuan Fang, Mingzhe Li, Taotao Qiu, Larissa Santos, Youping Wan, Wen Zhao, Yang Zhang
Sponsors:
The NSFC "Galaxies and Quasars" Innovation Group
Department of Astronomy, School of Physical Sciences, USTC
CAS Key Laboratory of Cosmology and Galaxy
The NSFC Director Fund for AliCPT
The Interdisciplinary Center for Theoretical Study, USTC
The Institute of Astrophysics, Central China Normal University