This was a talk I was invited to deliver during my Ph.D at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies. More specifically at the Goddard Space Flight Center Sciences and Exploration Directorate Earth Sciences Division in New York City.

The talk was titled:

“Cosmology through the large-scale structure of the Universe”

Abstract

The distribution of matter contains a lot of cosmological information. Applying N-point statistics one can measure the geometry and expansion of the cosmos as well as test General Relativity at scales of millions to billions of light years. In particular, I will discuss an exciting recent measurement dubbed the Baryonic Acoustic Feature, which has recently been detected in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxy sample. It is the largest known ``standard ruler” (half a billion light years across), and is being used to investigate the nature of the acceleration of the Universe.

Or watch on YouTube

This was part of the
Proceedings of the 2011 New York Workshop on Computer, Earth and Space Science,
by Way & Naud at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
February 24-25, 2011
ArXiv 1104.1580, Agenda w/links
Contriubiton titled: Cosmology through the large-scale structure of the Universe
(abstract, pdf, keynote, youtube)