Fundamental Physics from the Primordial Era with Galaxy Surveys

Organizers:

*Oliver Doré, Caltech/ JPL
Daniel Green, University of California, San Diego
Mikhail Ivanov, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
*Enrico Pajer, University of Cambridge
Oliver Philcox, Stanford University
Jamie Sullivan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

*scientific advisor

Understanding the one second before the hot Big Bang is central to many of the biggest open problems in physics, from the origin of dark matter and of structure in the Universe, to the nature of fundamental laws and quantum gravity. While this early phase of the Universe cannot be observed directly, its statistical properties are imprinted in the late-time distribution of cosmological tracers including dark matter and galaxies. These signals are becoming increasingly accessible through measurements of large-scale structure with galaxy surveys, for which a golden age is dawning (e.g., with DES, DESI, SPHEREx, Euclid, Rubin, and Roman); moreover, exciting opportunities at higher redshift and new analysis methods are actively being developed.

Now is a watershed moment for primordial cosmology, one which requires simultaneous participation from the entire community: theorists proposing physical mechanisms, phenomenologists modeling their manifestations as signals in large-scale structure, and observers informing the extent to which such signals are measurable. This Winter Conference will bring together experts across all aspects of this theory-to-observation spectrum to elucidate theory-motivated and observationally-accessible targets for primordial physics in the current and oncoming large-scale structure data deluge.

Topics will include:

1. Established and emerging theoretical models of physical processes in the primordial universe,
2. Observational channels of primordial physics in the late-time universe,
3. Detectability of primordial non-Gaussianity, primordial features, relativistic species, and axion-like particles in upcoming spectroscopic and photometric surveys,
4. Modeling of emerging precision large-scale structure probes of primordial physics (e.g., kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich cross-correlations, tensor correlations with galaxy shapes),
5. Observational dataset complementarity (e.g. Cosmic Microwave Background weak lensing cross-correlation), new analysis methods, and systematics mitigation.

Learn more at the conference website: https://aspen27-primordial-galaxies.netlify.app/