The research supported under this proposal touches cosmology, observational astronomy, aspects of particle physics, plasma physics, high energy astrophysics, black holes and computational physics. Techniques will be developed to best exploit future high precision data on the cosmic microwave background radiation and irregularities in the distribution of galaxies. The evolution of galaxies and some aspects of gamma ray bursts will be studied using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Keck telescopes. Theoretical work will attempt to elucidate the properties and distribution of dark matter, the origin of the excess of matter over antimatter in the Universe, the underlying physics of gamma ray bursts, the source of the highest energy cosmic rays, the process by which large black holes form and accrete matter, and selected issues in particle physics.
The work will help pin down the fundamental cosmological parameters such as Einstein's cosmological constant, the curvature of the universe, and the matter content of the universe. Conditions in the Universe in the instant after the Big Bang will be inferred. The mechanism by which the Big Bang developed and then ended will be elucidated and the "Inflationary Scenario" will be tested. Novel properties of space-time, such as extra dimensions or intrinsically quantum mechanical dimensions whose distances cannot be described by ordinary numbers, are inherent in string theory; it is an important challenge to find ways to discover these hidden features of the Universe, if they are there. Identifying and measuring the dark matter and dark energy, and answering the questions above, are prerequisites to deducing the fundamental theory of nature and to understanding why the Universe is hospitable to life at this or any epoch in its history.
