Reassessing the Cosmological Standard Model

Professor Hendrik Hildebrandt performs a precise test of the standard model of cosmology. While laying the groundwork, which met with considerable attention within the cosmological community, his team identified a discrepancy between the measurements of the weak gravitational lensing effect from the Kilo-Degree Survey and the highly precise measurements of cosmic microwave background radiation from the Planck satellite.

The objective of the ERC-funded project is to follow up on this evidence, to conduct even more precise measurements using new datasets and methods, and to decide if the discrepancies were caused by systematic errors or if they are early indicators of physics beyond the standard model.

In the long-term, this research will be fundamental for the ESA space mission Euclid. It will be launched at the end of the ERC Grant funding period, in order to perform measurements of the weak gravitational lensing effect at the highest precision to date and to find an answer to one of the most important questions of physics: the question of the nature of dark energy.

The ERC Consolidator Grant awarded to Hendrik Hildebrandt amounts to approximately two million euros. The project starts in 2018.