Theoretical Modeling of Large-Scale Structure of the Universe

Several surveys of the large-scale structure of the Universe which significantly improve the quality and amount of cosmological data are currently underway, including the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI, halfway through), Euclid (starting to take data), Dark Energy Survey (DES, doing final analyses), HSC (data taking complete), PFS (commissioning), and SKA, with many others starting in the near future, including Rubin, SPHEREx and Roman. Analogous advances are occurring in surveys of the Cosmic Microwave Background. These surveys will deliver more precise measurements and more statistics. Thus it is critical for the theoretical methods – developed for the pathfinder experiments – to be extended in precision and applicability.

Perturbation theory and other field theoretical methods provide a controlled way to estimate observational consequences of cosmological theories of structure formation and have come into their own with the large volume surveys in hand and underway, playing a key role in interpreting measurements from observational surveys. They have been used, for instance, in deriving constraints on cosmological parameters such as the average properties of the universe, particle content of the universe, and properties of gravity. These approaches and related methods for describing large-scale structures provide informative descriptions of observed phenomena, aid in developing physical intuition, and can be combined with simulations to extend their reach. As the quality and amount of cosmological data improve, current analytical models can and should be improved alongside, in order to take full advantage of observational advances.

This workshop, June 3-5 at the Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics, at the University of Edinburgh, aims to bring together those working on these modeling approaches from all over the world, to critically evaluate, collaborate and improve upon the current state-of-the-art, in order to be ready for the rich data now becoming available.

Confirmed attendees include Kazuyuki Akitsu (KEK, Japan), Emanuele Castorina (Univ de Milan, Italy), Stephen Chen (IAS, USA), Guido D'Amico (Univ de Parma, Italy), Vincent Desjacques (Technion, Israel), Oliver Hahn (Vienna, Austria), Mikhail Ivanov (MIT, USA), Nick Kokron (Princeton, USA), Takahiko Matsubara (KEK, Japan), Oliver Philcox (Columbia/Simons, USA), Julia Stadler (Garching, Germany), Matteo Zennaro (Oxford, UK) and Pierre Zhang (ETH Zurich, Switzerland).

Registration fee: £200 (£100 for students)

Payment information will be provided later, along with the sign up for the workshop dinner on the 4th of June (estimated to be £50 a person).

Registration is now open, however space is limited therefore for full consideration please register by Friday 1st March 2024.

Organizing Committee:

• Sam Brieden
• Florian Beutler
• Pedro Carrilho
• Yan-Chuan Cai
• Joanne Cohn
• Richard Neveux
• John Peacock
• Marcos Pellejero
• Alkistis Pourtsidou
• Martin White

Plus Angela Muir & Emma Johnston

Travel Scam!

If you received emails from travellerpoint(dot)org (or another travel company), please be careful. The email asks about arrival and departure dates to Edinburgh and offers a hotel booking form where they ask for credit card details. Please, ignore the emails and do not reply nor click on any link given by them. You can also block the domain on your email client. Our official emails are all from this website’s domain “@ed.ac.uk” (usually, sopa.events@ed.ac.uk). Please avoid giving private information to external sources. The only official way to register for our workshops and events are advertised via this website (or indico) and we will get in touch directly if we book accommodation for you.