| Speaker: | Brian Schmidt (Nobel Laureate in Physics in 2011) (Australian National University) |
|---|---|
| Title: | Supernovae, the Accelerating Cosmos, and Dark Energy |
| Date (JST): | Tue, Nov 20, 2012, 15:30 - 17:00 |
| Place: | Lecture Hall |
| Abstract: | Type Ia supernovae remain one of Astronomy's most precise tools for measuring distances in the Universe. I will describe the cosmological application of these stellar explosions, and chronicle how they were used to discover an accelerating Universe in 1998 - an observation which is most simply explained if more than 70% of the Universe is made up of some previously undetected form of 'Dark Energy'. Over the intervening 13 years, a variety of experiments have been completed, and even more proposed to better constrain the source of the acceleration. I will review the range of experiments, describing the current state of our understanding of the observed acceleration, and speculate about future progress in understanding Dark Energy. |
