Ultrahigh energy cosmic rays: an origin story Understanding how ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) reach energies in excess of 1e20 eV stretches particle acceleration physics to its very limits. In this talk, I will discuss how such energies can be reached, using general arguments that can often be derived on the back of an envelope. […]
Modeling and Observations of Cosmic Reionization In this talk I will introduce the topic of intergalactic medium reionization, its importance in the context of structure formation and how it is modeled from a theoretical point of view. I will then discuss how observations of the 21cm line from neutral hydrogen can be used to constrain […]
Low-cost high-fidelity data analysis with simulation-based inference The increasing volume and sophistication of astrophysical and cosmological data challenge traditional analysis methods, which often struggle with high-dimensional models and complex observations as seen for instance in gravitational waves, supernova cosmology, and gamma-ray data. Highlighting these limitations, this talk explores how deep learning and simulation-based inference can […]
Space Lasers and Aliens: Searching for optical transients with Gamma-ray Light Buckets Imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) are among the largest and fastest optical telescopes in the world, ideally suited to searching for nanosecond-timescale optical transients. These could be astrophysical in nature, or even associated with signals transmitted by extra-terrestrial civilizations. I will describe the […]
Search for primordial black hole dark matter with X-ray satellites and prospects for future missions Ultralight primordial black holes (PBHs) in the mass range of 1016 - 1022 g are allowed by current observations to constitute a significant fraction, if not all, of the dark matter in the Universe. In this work, we present limits […]
First Results from the eROSITA All-Sky Survey: An Open Window to Precision Cosmology Clusters of galaxies trace the highest peaks in the cosmic density field and offer an independent and powerful probe of the growth of structure and cosmology. Locating clusters through well-planned multi-wavelength surveys is crucial for testing gravitational theory and cosmology. Successfully launched […]
Neutrinos, Quantum Gravity and the Big Questions - New Ideas for New Data Neutrinos are perfect probes of quantum gravity. The particles’ weak interactions allow to preserve quantum coherence for very long timespans, and neutrino telescopes have started to collect data of neutrinos at extreme energies that have travelled extra-galactic distances. Moreover, the expected breaking […]
News from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and Related Phenomenology It has been ten years since IceCube, a neutrino detector embedded in the Antarctic glacier, has detected high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. In this informal talk, I will report on the latest results from IceCube and point out opportunities for searches for new physics. In particular, I will […]
Community, Standardisation, and Reproducibility: does open-source software help advancing high-energy astrophysics? In this talk, I will discuss how high-energy astrophysics, and gamma-ray astronomy in particular, are being transformed by several community-based efforts to develop standardised data and open-source software both for statistical analysis and physical modelling. In the first part of the talk, I will […]
Pulsar polarization: explanations and applications Pulsar radio emission, and particularly its polarization, is a key probe of neutron star physics. This, in turn, means that we can use it to advance searches for gravitational waves and to map out the invisible structures of the galaxy. However, new and improved observations show that the conventional model […]
Machine Learning: from Quantum Technologies to Neuromorphic Devices
Evidence for high-energy neutrinos from the Galactic plane The Milky Way, our home galaxy, is visible to the eye as a faint band of light in the night sky. This emission from the Galactic plane extends over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio to gamma rays. A fraction of the gamma-ray emission […]
