ASTROPHYSICS: DES AND LSST

It has become increasingly clear that particle physics and astrophysics have much in common. In particular, the evolution of the universe since the Big Bang depends crucially on the properties of the elementary particles that contains. Several interesting puzzles have attracted Thaler’s attention—the contribution of neutrinos to the formation of cosmological structure (stars and galaxies) and the nature of the dark matter and the dark energy are of particular interest. These materials together make up 96% of the total energy in the universe, but their other properties are almost completely unknown.