Time: 14:00-15:00PM, 20/Nov, Monday 

Venue: 理科5号楼300号报告厅, Conference hall 5#300

You can also access the colloquium via :

https://m.koushare.com/topic-sc/i/physics_sjtu

Abstract: The "Lambda cold dark matter" (LCDM) cosmological model is one of the great achievements in Physics of the past thirty years. Theoretical predictions formulated in the 1980s turned out to agree remarkably well with measurements, performed decades later, of the galaxy distribution and the temperature structure of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Yet, these successes do not inform us directly about the nature of the dark matter or the dark energy.  Recently, a number of "tensions" with observations on large and small scales have been highlighted. I will mention these and focus on small, subgalactic scales, where the dark matter manifests itself most clearly, including the dwarf satellite galaxies of the Milky Way and less massive dark matter halos, too small to have made a galaxy. I will argue that the perception of a "small-scale crisis" for LCDM stems from an inappropriate application of simulations and that the simplest version of the theory is consistent with available data. I will contrast the predictions of LCDM with those of the interesting alternative of warm dark matter and show how forthcoming gravitational lensing data can conclusively distinguish between the two and, in principle, conclusively rule cold dark matter out. 

Bio: Carlos Frenk is the Ogden Professor of Fundamental Physics. He founded the Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University's world-renowned theoretical cosmology research group in 2001 and was Director until 2020. He is one of the originators of the "Cold dark matter" theory for the formation of structure in our Universe. Along with collaborators from all over the world, he builds model universes, based on the known laws of physics. Using some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, Frenk and colleagues try to understand how our Universe evolved from the simple beginnings of the Big Bang to the present day and how it developed the complex structures, composed of stars and galaxies, that we see around us today.

Frenk is the Principal Investigator of the Virgo consortium, the leading international collaboration in cosmological supercomputer simulations. He has published over 550 scientific papers and, with over 115,000 citations, he is one of the most frequently cited authors in the space science literature.  He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2004 and has received numerous prizes, including the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Rumford medal of the Royal Society, the Dirac medal of the Institute of Physics， The Max Born medal from the German Physics Society, the Gruber Cosmology prize, the Hoyle medal, the George Darwin Prize, the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, the Oort Professorship, the Royal Society Wolfson award, etc. He was made Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen's 2017 birthday list. He features regularly on radio and TV.

Frenk has received over £70 million in research grants during his career and is currently the holder of a prestigious European Research Council Advanced Investigator grant. He was instrumental in obtaining external funding for two research buildings at Durham, including a landmark building designed by New York-based architect Daniel Libeskind which was opened in March 2017.