The Potential of Future Large-Scale Surveys in Probing Alternative Cosmologies

by Dr Stefano Camera (Universidade Técnica de Lisboa)

Monday 14 May 2012, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Brussels

E/3rd floor-E.349 - Seminar room (E.349) (Marc de Hemptinne (chemin du Cyclotron, 2, Louvain-la-Neuve))

Here, I present some recent results on the current and next generation of wide-field, large-scale surveys, and their capability in tightly constraining alternative cosmologies and discriminating between them and the current concordance model. Specifically, I make use of ongoing CMB experiments such as WMAP and Planck as well as forthcoming and future surveys.  Amongst them I focus on continuum radio surveys meant to be pathfinders for the SKA - e.g. EMU and WODAN - and the Euclid satellite, which will provide accurate measurements on both galaxy clustering and cosmic shear signal. I test several alternative cosmological models, from quintessence to modified gravity theories, passing through scalar-field models of unified dark matter and dark energy and brane-world cosmologies.