Science Society - Discovering Cosmic Reionisation

James Kent PhD candidate, Wolfson College

Date 21/02/2020 at 17.45 - 21/02/2020 at 19.00 Where Gatsby Room, Chancellor’s Centre, Wolfson College

The Science Society arranges weekly talks (during term time) from various disciplines across the Sciences. The talks are open to anyone and free to attend.

The Epoch of Reionisation (EoR) is one of the most mysterious epochs in our
universes history. It stands as one of the main hurdles in
constraining the parameters of the Lambda-CDM model further. It is
currently one of the biggest research frontiers in Astrophysics and
Radio Astronomy. I will first explain the motivations for exploring
the EoR, and an overview of using the 21-cm hydrogen spectral line. I
will discuss current experimental efforts, and the
enormous difficulties that face radio astronomers in trying to detect
the highly redshifted 21-cm spectral line. Tentative results and
current progress is discussed, as well as a look towards the future
in this growing area of cosmology and astronomy.