Public lecture “Early Universe Cosmology: a primer”

The public lecture of the international conference “Geometric Foundations of Gravity 2023” will be held on Tuesday, 20 June at 18:15 in the Tartu Old Observatory. Prof. Mairi Sakellariadou will talk on the topic “Early Universe Cosmology: a primer”.

I will give an overview of our current understanding of early universe cosmology. I will present the successes and open problems of the standard cosmological model and the role of observations and experiments against which we test our theories. I will discuss the interplay between astrophysics, high energy physics and theories of gravity aiming at unravelling the mysteries of our universe and I will highlight the need for a theory that will encompass quantum mechanics and general relativity.

Mairi Sakellariadou is a theoretical physicist working in particle physics, gravitation and cosmology, with a focus on the physics of the early universe. She studied mathematics at the University of Athens and then astrophysics at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. She received her PhD from Tufts University in Massachusetts. After postdoctoral studies at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, the University of Zurich, the University of Geneva and CERN, she became an associate professor at the University of Athens. In 2005 she joined King's College as an Associate Professor and in 2011 was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics there. She is the chairman of the "Gravitational Physics" section of the European Physical Society, and the current President-Elect of the Society. She is a member of several collaborative projects and consortia, including the LIGO research collaboration, the LISA consortium and the MoEDAL experiment.

Everybody is welcome. Entrance is free.

Public lectures of earlier conferences:

• Prof. Davi Rodrigues (Espírito Santo) Why do galaxies rotate? 2 June 2022 (BBB recording)
• Prof. Escamilla Rivera (Mexico) How a dispute over a single number became a cosmological crisis 29 June 2021 (BBB recording)
• Prof. Emmanuel Saridakis (Athens) Black holes and gravitational waves 16 June 2020 (BBB recording)
• Prof. Lavinia Heisenberg (Zurich) Our dark Universe 18 June 2019
• Prof. Salvatore Capozziello (Naples) Time travel, black holes and wormholes 26 June 2018
• Prof. Robin Tucker (Lancaster) Beyond gravity 29 August 2017