SHAO Astrophysics Colloquium

Title: Highlights in cosmology 2019

Speaker: Charling Tao (Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseilles)

Time: 3:00 pm, October 17th (Thursday) 

Location: Lecture hall, 3rd floor

Abstract: After a brief reminder of the basics of cosmology, I will discuss some of the present issues and the results of some present and future projects that addresses those issues.

Brief biographical sketch:

Charling Tao is a mother of twins and grandmother of two boys. She trained as a particle physicist, designing detectors to detect the invisible world of neutrinos and Dark Matter. She tested quantum chromodynamics (QCD) with Deep inelastic scattering, discovered the W and Z0 mediators of the Weak interaction with the UA1 experiment at CERN. She became an astrophysicist, to understand the mystery of the missing solar neutrinos. GALLEX in Gran Sasso (LNGS) was the first experiment to measure the contribution of the pp neutrinos. She designed the DAMA experiment with NaI(Tl) crystals but protested the claim of a DM signal at Gran Sasso. She joined and designed the first prototype of the undersea ANTARES detector. The mystery of the Dark Energy converted her into a cosmologist. Since 2005, she is testing  ΛCDM with Supernovae, Baryonic Oscillations and Weak Lensing. Charling Tao is a director of research in CNRS, France, and emeritus professor in DOA, Tsinghua University. She is currently co-leading the transient science working group in the European Euclid space cosmology project and studies the complementarity with the Chinese space project CSS-OS and with LSST and SKA. She is also testing a directional Dark Matter detector.