Vera Gluscevic, USC, Physics

Title: The Universe We Cannot See

Galaxies exist because invisible dark matter outweighs normal matter by a factor of six in our universe; cosmological expansion accelerates today because dark energy dominates spacetime on cosmic scales. Neither of these phenomena is explained by known particles or forces – their existence points to tremendous gaps in our understanding of nature on the most fundamental level. Over the past two decades, high-precision observations have enabled allocation of our universe into dark matter, dark energy, radiation, and baryon components, giving rise to the backbone model of cosmology. This talk will discuss the quest to understand the microphysics of the dominant (but invisible) components of our universe. I will focus on the mass and interactions of dark matter and neutrino particles as notable examples of science targets for cosmological surveys, to illustrate how observational data that spans billions of years of cosmic history and decades in physical distance scales can pave a new path toward discoveries in fundamental physics.