Thesis

Testing the unified dark matter-dark energy hypothesis in the Euclid era

• Call:

  IDPASC Portugal - PHD Programme 2019

• Academic Year:

  2019 / 2020

• Domain:

  Cosmology

• Supervisor:

  Ismael Tereno

• Co-Supervisor:

  Alberto Rozas-Fernandez

• Institution:

  Faculdade de Ciências - Universidade de Lisboa

• Host Institution:

  Faculdade de Ciências - Universidade de Lisboa

• Abstract:

  Physical cosmology relies on two unknown substances – dark matter and dark energy – in order to provide a description of the Universe that is consistent with current observations. Many dark matter and dark energy hypotheses will soon become testable with data from the Euclid space mission. This project addresses one of those hypotheses: the unification of dark matter and dark energy (UDM). The goal of the project is to study the evolution of cosmological structure in UDM scenarios, deriving their signatures in Euclid’s gravitational lensing observables and forecasting Euclid’s ability in testing this hypothesis. The theoretical derivations need to be done with high precision and accuracy to match the data quality. In particular, they need to address structure formation in the non-linear regime. An important task of the project is the development of N-body simulations of UDM models. Other tasks include assessment of model-dependent systematics, creation of lensing maps and statistical inference of model parameters.