NEUCosmoS is an ERC Consolidator Grant at the IAP, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, led by Dr. Silvia Galli.
The goal of NEUCosmoS is to unravel some of the most severe inconsistencies that are currently threatening the so-far very successful standard model of cosmology (ΛCDM). The most critical one is the growing difference in the measurement of the expansion rate of the universe today, the Hubble constant from different observables. In particular, early-time probes such as the Cosmic Microwave Background prefer values of H0 which are lower than those from late-time ones, such as Supernovae Ia calibrated through Cepheids. Additional discrepancies are also present in the amplitude of matter perturbations, σ8, and in other fundamental parameters, such as the curvature of the universe. These anomalies, if confirmed, will have revolutionary implications for physics.
NEUCosmoS aims at providing new, ground-breaking insight into these issues through the development of a robust analysis pipeline to extract some of the most precise cosmological information from one of the forefront CMB experiments: the South Pole Telescope 3rd-Generation (SPT-3G). SPT-3G will measure the CMB small-scale polarization with unprecedented accuracy over the next 5 years, opening an entirely new window in CMB cosmology, with potentially original discoveries on its own. However, this statistical power will be useless without an analysis able to guarantee robustness against systematic effects, which the NEUCosmoS team is an expert on. NEUCosmoS will lead this effort within the SPT collaboration, opening a unique opportunity of European access to the SPT-3G data.
NEUCosmoS will provide a data-analysis pipeline which will be able to fully exploit the highly sensitive SPT-3G data, building upon the group’s Planck experience and tools, adapting them to the new challenge. The NEUCosmoS team will drive the interpretation of current and future hints of new physics in a reliable way, with statistical power comparable to the Planck satellite. In combination with Planck, SPT-3G data is expected to double the constraining capability. This will pave the way to a future contribution by Europe to the next-generation of CMB experiments.
