Professor Lars Bergstrom from Stockholm University is currently visiting the KICP as a long-term sabbatical visitor until May 8. Lars is an Astroparticle Physicist and Cosmologist, who is world renowned for his work on many aspects of the Dark Matter problem. His research has touched on many areas of cosmological physics and he has made numerous fundamental contributions to the WIMP paradigm of dark matter, with indirect detection of annihilating WIMPs being a particular focus. Lars is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and was Scientific Secretary of its Nobel Committee for Physics from 2004-2015. During his visit Lars will be in office ERC 421 and welcomes visits from all KICP members interested in discussing science. Professor Bergstrom will present the April 16 KICP Colloquium.

Danielle Norcini

Danielle Norcini will receive her Ph.D. from the Wright Laboratory at Yale University in particle/nuclear physics. She helped lead the R&D and construction of the PROSPECT detector to measure neutrinos at very short distances from a nuclear reactor in a challenging background environment. Her thesis details a search for sterile neutrino oscillations and the world-leading measurement of the uranium-235 antineutrino energy spectrum. As a KICP and Grainger fellow, she plans to develop instruments to measure astrophysical neutrinos and other cosmic particles, probing fundamental physics and cosmology.

Yiming Zhong

I received my PhD from Stony Brook University in 2016 and I did my first postdoc at Boston University before coming to KICP. As a phenomenologist, I am interested in connecting theory to data. My work centers on the search for light dark matter and dark sectors at accelerator experiments or through observations of small-scale cosmological structure. At KICP, I hope to develop new ways to probe dark matter properties and investigate the puzzling anomalies in current cosmological observations.

Victor Buza

Victor Buza will receive his PhD from Harvard University. For his graduate career, he codeveloped the likelihood analysis framework used to analyze BICEP/Keck/Planck/WMAP data and place the tightest constraints on primordial gravitational wave to date. He was also the author of the performance-based forecasting framework that guided the optimization and design of CMB-S4, and determined the currently proposed baseline CMB-S4 instrument configuration. As a KICP Fellow Victor plans to work closely with the KICP community on theory and analysis for CMB polarization experiments (SPT-3G, BICEP/Keck, CMB-S4) and cross-correlations of CMB data with large-scale structure efforts (DES/LSST).

Jose Maria Ezquiaga

Jose Maria Ezquiaga will receive his PhD from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. His research focuses on probing the pillars of the standard cosmological model with gravitational waves. As a KICP and Einstein Fellow, Jose Maria will exploit LIGO's data to constrain the propagation of gravitational waves, the expansion of the Universe and the origin of the observed black-holes, anticipating as well how to improve such tests with the next generation of detectors, specially with the space antenna LISA.

Related Links:
Scientific projects: BICEP2/The Keck Array/BICEP3; Dark Energy Survey (DES); Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST); Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO); South Pole Telescope (SPT)

Dear Colleagues,

Please join me in congratulating Don York who has been awarded the Royal Astronomical Society Service Award for Astronomy.

The RAS citation reads:
"Professor Donald York, as the Founding Director of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), was a key figure in the conception, design, construction, and initial operation of one of the most successful astronomical facilities of the 21st century. With its first-ever digital image of the entire northern high galactic latitude sky, homogeneously and painstakingly calibrated in a novel photometric system, plus millions of homogeneously obtained spectra, SDSS has touched every subfield of astronomy.

Multiple studies agree that SDSS is the most cited and most impactful facility in ground-based astronomy, or even all astronomy. More than 7,600 papers refer to SDSS in the title or abstract, and these publications have garnered roughly 400,000 citations. Twenty-five of these papers have 1,000 or more citations, and almost 800 have 100 or more citations.

Professor York enabled one of the most significant astronomical projects of our lifetimes, one that benefits the entire international community, and is a truly deserving recipient of the RAS Service Award."

Congratulations Don!

John Carlstrom,
Subramanyan Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor and Chair Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics

Related Links:
KICP Members: Donald G. York

Please join me in congratulating Wayne Hu on his appointment as the Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor.

Congratulations Wayne!

John Carlstrom
Chair of Astronomy & Astrophysics,
Subramanyan Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor

Read in UChicago News

Related Links:
KICP Members: Wayne Hu

Senior Member Abigail Vieregg awarded a J. and J. Neubauer Faculty Development Fellowship.

The J. and J. Neubauer Faculty Development Fellowships are funded through the generosity of Joseph and Jeanette Neubauer in support of excellence in teaching. The purpose of the fellowship is to recognize innovative and effective teaching on the part of Assistant and Associate Professors who regularly participate in the College's instructional programs. The Neubauer Fellowships are awarded upon the recommendation of the Dean of the College and the Masters of the Collegiate Divisions.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Abigail G. Vieregg

Grayson Rich has received a APS Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics.
Citation: "For outstanding contributions to the first observation of coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering as a member of the COHERENT neutrino experiment at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory."

The Dissertation Award recognizes a recent Ph.D. in nuclear physics. The annual award consists of $2,500, a certificate, travel reimbursement, and a registration waiver to receive the award and give an invited talk at a Division of Nuclear Physics session at the APS April Meeting.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Grayson Rich

We reject the recent claims on gender and physics by Alessandro Strumia. Our Departments and Institute believe that diversity is essential to the health of our fields and to advancing our science. We reaffirm our commitment to making our communities more diverse and to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment. All the members of a community share the responsibility for its climate, and so we welcome suggestions on how to improve ours.

John E. Carlstrom, Chair, Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics
Young-Kee Kim, Chair, Department of Physics
Michael S. Turner, Director, Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics

Related Links:
KICP Members: John E. Carlstrom; Michael S. Turner

Elizabeth Buckley-Geer
Citation: For the creation and leadership of the Dark Energy Survey Strong Lensing Group including discovery and confirmation of numerous strong lenses and multiply lensed quasars and their application to new measurements of cosmic dark matter and dark energy.

Salman Habib, KICP senior member
Citation: For outstanding contributions and leadership in the study of quantum-to-classical transitions in nonlinear dynamical systems and the development of the Hybrid/Hardware Accelerated Cosmology Code providing the most detailed simulations of the universe using the world's most advanced supercomputers.

LianTao Wang, KICP senior member
Citation: For novel contributions to jet sub-structure studies (jet-trimming), facilitating LHC searches for Higgs boson, dark matter, supersymmetry and new dynamics in the electroweak sector, and pioneering explorations for future e+e- and hadron colliders.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Salman Habib; Lian-Tao Wang

KICP Senior Member Josh Frieman recently became President Elect of the Aspen Center for Physics. In a year's time, Josh will become President of the Center for a three-year term. The Aspen Center for Physics is well known for hosting cutting-edge, multi-week workshops in the summer and intensive one-week conferences in winter. Typically, 500-600 physicists visit every summer, for workshops, for smaller working groups, and to carry out individual research in a unique setting.

Aspen Center for Physics

Related Links:
KICP Members: Joshua A. Frieman

A special event for the Bulletin of the Atomic (Cafe) Scientists at the Sunday, September 23, 5:30 screening - atomic cocktails before and Questions and Answers with the Auteur Herself after.

Artfully culled from newsreel footage, government archives, and pop-culture artifacts (cocktails, fashions, cartoons, jukebox songs, etc.), THE ATOMIC CAFE is a mind-boggling compendium of misinformation that was aimed at selling nuclear war to the postwar American public like a new brand of laundry detergent. As singing Polynesians are evacuated from Bikini Atoll and Burt the Turtle tells schoolchildren how to "Duck and Cover," public officials promote a devil-may-care attitude toward the dangers of nuclear attack and radioactive fallout. This groundbreaking, often-imitated documentary created a sensation when first released in 1982; now, with fake news in ascendancy, and the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" famous Doomsday Clock set at its furthest point (two minutes to midnight) since 1953, it seems as timely as ever. New 4K DCP digital restoration. (MR)

Read more

October 2, 2018 @ 6PM
Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
Harold Washington Library Center,
Chicago Public Library
400 South State Street

World-renowned scientist Martin Rees offers his look at the future of humanity and science in this talk based upon his new book On the Future: Prospects for Humanity. Rees argues that humanity's future is bound to the future of science, and our prospects hinge on how successfully we harness technological advances to address the challenges to our collective future. If we are to use science to solve our problems while avoiding its dystopian risks, Rees shows how we must think rationally, globally, collectively, and optimistically about the long-term future. Advances in biotechnology, cybertechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence - if pursued and applied wisely- could empower us to boost the developing and developed world and overcome the threats humanity faces on Earth, from climate change to nuclear war. Rees offers fascinating insights into cutting-edge science and technology while providing a unique perspective on the critical issues that will define the future of humanity on Earth and beyond.

Presented in collaboration with the Chicago Public Library.

Doors to the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium open at 5 p.m. and seating is available first come, first served. The event is free but registration is recommended. Books are available for purchase from Seminary Co-op Books and the author will autograph books at the conclusion of the program.

Read more

Read more >>

Please join me in congratulating Brad Benson on his promotion from Associate Scientist to Scientist at Fermilab. The Scientist appointment is parallel to that of an Associate Professor with tenure at a university.

Congratulations Brad!

- John E. Carlstrom
Subramanyan Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor and Chair Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics

Related Links:
KICP Members: Bradford A. Benson; John E. Carlstrom
Scientific projects: South Pole Telescope (SPT)

Please join me in congratulating Mike Gladders on his promotion to the rank of Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Congratulations Mike!

- John E. Carlstrom
Subramanyan Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor and Chair Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics

Related Links:
KICP Members: John E. Carlstrom; Michael D. Gladders

Congratulations to Ross Cawthon for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation on "Effects of Redshift Uncertainty on Cross-Correlations of CMB Lensing and Galaxy Surveys".

Ross has received a position of Research Associate at the Department of Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Joshua A. Frieman
KICP Students: Ross Cawthon
Scientific projects: Dark Energy Survey (DES); South Pole Telescope (SPT)

President Robert J. Zimmer and Provost Daniel Diermeier hosted a reception honoring Rocky Kolb for his service as Dean of the Physical Sciences Division. Friends, colleagues, and family all celebrated his many successes and wished him well as he returns to being a full-time faculty member at the KICP.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Edward W. Kolb

Please join me in congratulating Dan Holz on his promotion to Full Professor.

Congratulations Dan!

John E. Carlstrom
Subramanyan Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor and Chair Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics

Related Links:
KICP Members: John E. Carlstrom; Daniel E. Holz

Congratulations to Dr. Cameron Liang for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation on "Multiphase Gaseous Halos around Galaxies".

Related Links:
KICP Members: Andrey V. Kravtsov
KICP Students: Cameron Liang

We are pleased to announce that Angela V. Olinto, Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Enrico Fermi Institute, and the College, has been appointed Dean of the Division of the Physical Sciences, effective July 1, 2018.

Angela brings depth of University experience and scholarly expertise to this leadership role, making her an excellent choice as dean. She joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1996, and served as chair of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics from 2003 to 2006, and from 2012 to 2017. Her research interests are in astroparticle physics and cosmology. Recently, she has focused on understanding the origin of high-energy cosmic rays, gamma rays, and neutrinos.

Angela's leadership has extended to large and complex projects. She is the leader of the POEMMA and EUSO space missions and a member of the Pierre Auger Observatory. These international projects aim to discover the origin of high-energy cosmic rays. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and was chair of the APS Division of Astrophysics in 2013. She was a trustee of the Aspen Center for Physics, and serves on many advisory committees for the National Academy of Sciences, Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, and NASA. Among numerous other awards and honors, Angela received the Chaire d'Excellence Award of the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche in 2006, the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2011, and the Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentoring in 2015.

Angela's appointment was informed by the recommendations of an elected committee of faculty in the Division of the Physical Sciences, chaired by Stuart A. Kurtz, Professor in the Department of Computer Science. We want to express our appreciation to the committee for their thoughtful work and their commitment to the Division of the Physical Sciences.

We would also like to thank Rocky Kolb for his leadership of the Division of the Physical Sciences over the past five years. Under Rocky's leadership, the Division of the Physical Sciences built important initiatives, enhancing its historic strengths as a leading center of scientific discovery and education, and expanded and renovated the Physics Research Center. Rocky will be returning to his full-time work on the faculty at the end of his term as Dean.

Please join us in congratulating Angela on this appointment and thanking Rocky for his service.

Robert J. Zimmer, President, and Daniel Diermeier, Provost

Related Links:
KICP Members: Edward W. Kolb; Angela V. Olinto
Scientific projects: Pierre Auger Observatory (AUGER)

Congratulations to Dr. Pavel Motloch for successfully defending his Ph.D. dissertation on "Topics in Gravitational Lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background".

Pavel has recieved a Postdoctoral Fellow position at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical
Astrophysics.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Wayne Hu
KICP Students: Pavel Motloch

Results from XENON1T, the world's largest and most sensitive detector dedicated to a direct search for Dark Matter in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), are reported today (Monday, 28th May) by the spokesperson, Prof. Elena Aprile of Columbia University, in a seminar at the hosting laboratory, the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS), in Italy. The international collaboration of more than 165 researchers from 27 institutions, has successfully operated XENON1T, collecting an unprecedentedly large exposure of about 1 tonne x year with a 3D imaging liquid xenon time projection chamber. The data are consistent with the expectation from background, and place the most stringent limit on spin-independent interactions of WIMPs with ordinary matter for a WIMP mass higher than 6 GeV/c². The sensitivity achieved with XENON1T is almost four orders of magnitude better than that of XENON10, the first detector of the XENON Dark Matter project, which has been hosted at LNGS since 2005. Steadily increasing the fiducial target mass from the initial 5 kg to the current 1300 kg, while simultaneously decreasing the background rate by a factor 5000, the XENON collaboration has continued to be at the forefront of Dark Matter direct detection, probing deeper into the WIMP parameter space.
Read more

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UChicago, Luca Grandi's group

"I am really happy with the performance of the XENON1T detector" said Luca Grandi. "XENON1T displays an impressive sensitivity to WIMP spin-independent interaction, about 7 times better than the concurrent leading experiments in the field (for WIMP masses above 6 GeV/c^2). This result shows the potential of combining multi-tonne detectors with low background techniques. Despite this accomplishment, dark matter remains still to be discovered. The search continues!".

The contributions of Grandi's group to the XENON projects included several activities. After the initial contribution to the construction and assembly of the XENON1T Time Projection Chamber, the group worked hard to make UChicago the single analysis hub serving the entire international collaboration. The system, developed in collaboration with Robert Gardner and Benedikt Riedel at the UChicago Computational Institute, allows for easy access both to remote grid resources (needed to process the large data volume produced by XENON1T) and local resources available at the UChicago Research Computing Center. The latter, thanks to the support from Runesha Birali and KICP, have been intensively used in these last several months to converge on the results presented in the paper. The UChicago group, with its postdoc Jacques Pienaar and graduate students Katrina Miller and Evan Shockley, contributed to several aspects of the presented analysis, including the development of the neutron background models and Monte Carlo simulations and the study of the response and efficiency of the detector at low energy. The group will continue its involvement in XENON1T analysis by searching for alternative dark matter candidates.

In the meanwhile Grandi's group is also heavily involved in the upgrade of the detector to the next phase, known as XENONnT, which will feature a fiducial target mass about 4 times larger and is expected to start data taking in about one year from now. The group, with support from Ben Stillwell at the Enrico Fermi Institute, is leading the design of the new Time Projection Chamber, coordinating its production and assembly, as well as preparing the upgrade of the data processing infrastructure to allow the handling of the even larger data volumes. The larger fiducial mass and the implementation of new innovative techniques will enable further suppression of the already ultra-low background levels, and will allow XENONnT to further explore the WIMP paradigm and improve its sensitivity by about an order of magnitude. "Dark Matter is still out there" Grandi concludes "... and we will do our best to continue to stay on the front line of this uncharted territory!"

Related Links:
KICP Members: Luca Grandi; Jacques Pienaar
KICP Students: Katrina Miller; Evan Shockley
Scientific projects: XENON1T

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to report that Chihway Chang will be an Assistant Professor with the Astronomy & Astrophysics Department and a senior member of the KICP, starting October 1, 2018.

- John E. Carlstrom
Subramanyan Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor and Chair Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics

Related Links:
KICP Members: John E. Carlstrom; Chihway Chang

Former KICP student (and current Harvard postdoc) Benedikt Diemer has collaborated with Isaac Facio from the Art Institute to create the Adler Planetarium's new "Fabric of the Universe" display.

Related Links:
KICP Students: Benedikt Diemer

In the later years of Fred Kavli's life, the Norwegian-born entrepreneur built a small foundation with a big reputation for funding basic science. When Kavli passed away in 2013, it was clear that legacy would grow with additional wealth from his estate, but it wasn’t clear how much was on the way.

Turns out, it was a lot....

Read more >>

Paolo Privitera has been awarded a 4 M$ Advanced Grant by the European Research Council to search for light dark matter particles with DAMIC. The DArk Matter In CCDs experiment (DAMIC) is designed to detect the tiny signals produced by the interaction of dark matter with the bulk silicon of ~mm-thick charge-coupled devices. The kg-size DAMIC detector to be installed at the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane in France will search for low-mass dark matter particles with unprecedented sensitivity. The European Research Council "selects and funds the very best, creative researchers of any nationality to run projects based in Europe", with Principal Investigators of Advanced Grants identified as "exceptional leaders in terms of originality and significance of their research contributions."

Related Links:
KICP Members: Paolo Privitera
Scientific projects: Dark Matter in CCDs (DAMIC)

Nora won the DOE SCGSR Fellowship and a URA Visiting Scholars Program award to work with Fermilab scientists on using stellar streams to learn about dark matter in the Milky Way.

"Nora Shipp has carried out an analysis of the wide-field distribution of stars in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) footprint on the sky and identified several known stellar streams and discovered new streams. Stellar streams are an "archeological" record of the accretion history of the Milky Way and can be used as probes of properties of dark matter and of the Milky Way gravitational potential.

This project resulted in a paper that presented one of the most spectacular scientific results of the first year DES data and the results were a subject of a number of press releases and were widely covered in the media. In collaboration with DES scientists at Fermilab, Nora is continuing to characterize the streams analyzed in the DES and is planning to search for gaps in the streams and to model them using techniques developed by a former KICP student, Denis Erkal, as part of his postdoc work with Vasily Belokurov at Cambridge. Nora also plans to carry out N-body simulations for more detailed modeling of the streams. This program can potentially provide a new and unique probe of existence of dark matter clumps of mass $approx 10^6-10^7$ solar masses in the Milky Way, thereby constraining properties of dark matter itself, and to constrain properties of the Milky Way potential itself. DoE and URA fellowships that Nora received will help to carry out the first stages of this longer term PhD thesis program."
- Andrey Kravtsov, scientific advisor

Related Links:
KICP Members: Andrey V. Kravtsov
KICP Students: Nora Shipp

Congratulations to Katrina Miller, KICP graduate student, for winning a 2018 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!

Katrina is a member of the XENON collaboration, an international research group operating a 3.3-ton liquid xenon detector in search for dark matter. Her current project focuses on characterizing processes that produce single electron events in our detector as a source of low-energy background that would mask potential dark matter signals interacting via electronic, rather than nuclear, recoil.

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) has announced the offer of 2,000 fellowship awards, following a national competition. The program recruits high-potential, early-career scientists and engineers and supports their graduate research training in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

Related Links:
KICP Members: Luca Grandi
KICP Students: Katrina Miller
Scientific projects: XENON1T

Citation:
"Dear Kaeli Hughes:
I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected to receive a 2018 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Fellowship. Your selection was based on your demonstrated potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the U.S. science and engineering enterprise. Your selection as an NSF Graduate Fellowship awardee is a significant accomplishment. We wish you success in your graduate studies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) or in STEM education, and continued success in achieving your career aspirations. We look forward to learning about your achievements and contributions during your graduate study and beyond.

Sincerely,

Dean Evasius
Division Director
Division of Graduate Education"

Related Links:
KICP Members: Abigail G. Vieregg
KICP Students: Kaeli Hughes
Scientific projects: Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA)