Elena Pierpaoli’s lab is composed of enthusiastic cosmologists who are dedicated to understanding the properties of our Universe through analyzing the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation and the distribution of galaxies on large scales. The experiments of the past decades have produced impressive results which allowed to determine the fundamental cosmological parameters with percent precision. Despite this, we are very far from having fully understood how the universe works and what it is made of. More than 90% of the energy in our Universe is of unknown nature (either dark matter or dark energy which we cannot yet pin down completely). The early universe processes which set up the stage for the current condition of our Universe are only broadly understood. While we know black holes in a wide range of masses are present in the universe we largely ignore their actual abondance and we do not fully understand the process that set them in place.
Future galaxy surveys (e.g. LSST, DESI, Euclid, WFIRST), CMB observations (e.g. Simons Observatory, CMB-S4), and gravitational wave experiments (e.g. LIGO, VIRGO, LISA) will greatly contribute to answering these fundamental questions.
Our group is committed to exploiting these observations in order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the content and evolution of the universe.