STEM Speaker Series: “Unveiling the First Moments of the Universe’s Creation with the Simons Observatory” with Dr. Neelima Sehgal

Posted on November 18, 2020 by Clara Tran

Date: 11/18/2020

Time: 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Location
Zoom

Description

Title: Unveiling the First Moments of the Universe’s Creation with the Simons Observatory

Abstract: I will discuss how we are collecting the oldest light in the Universe, called the Cosmic Microwave Background, in order to determine what happened in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang. We collect this light with microwave telescopes in the Atacama Desert in Chile. I will discuss a new $100 million project to build the next generation of microwave telescopes in Chile, which will be called the Simons Observatory. This new observatory has the potential to detect ancient gravitational waves that could unlock the mysteries of how galaxies and stars (and we) came to be. The detection of this signal would also unlock the mysteries of how gravity works by providing direct evidence that gravity and quantum mechanics are joined at the highest energies. I will also explain how work at Stony Brook plays a critical role in this research.

Bio: Dr. Neelima Sehgal is an Associate Professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department at Stony Brook University. She studies the Cosmic Microwave Background, which is the oldest light in the Universe, to determine what happened during the early Universe and to discover the properties of neutrinos and dark matter. Dr. Sehgal received her B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from Yale University and her PhD in Physics and Astronomy from Rutgers University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford and Princeton Universities before joining the faculty at Stony Brook in 2012. Her research is currently funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.