Project leader: Matti Heikinheimo    Personnel

Project’s website

Background

The goal of the research project is to provide solutions, in terms of particle physics, to the most pressing open problems in cosmology: inflation, dark matter (DM), baryogenesis, and the current accelerating expansion of the universe. The project ties theoretical research and model building with modern experimental probes and advances in experimental technologies and data analysis methods.

The theoretical research in the project ranges from novel laboratory tests of elementary particles to the physics of solid-state matter and to the physics of the cosmos and the entire observable universe. We will make use of data from ongoing and upcoming cosmological experiments such as Euclid and DESI, astroparticle experiments such as LUX-ZEPLIN and XENONnT, and we are directly involved in the experimental programmes of the gravitational-wave observatory LISA and the dark-matter direct detection experiment COSINUS. The unique strength of the project therefore lies in the interdisciplinarity of its theoretical research and in its close proximity to the experimental landscape. This connection helps focus the theoretical work on experimentally testable questions and allows us to make maximal use of available data in testing the theories. Below, we introduce the main lines of research.