The Earliest and the Brightest: the Distant and High Energy Universe from the South Pole

The universe at its extremes is only dimly understood, with many fundamental questions unanswered: What were the first luminous objects to form? What powers the universe's biggest explosions? How do omnipresent dark matter and dark radiation like neutrinos affect the history of the cosmos? What is the origin of cosmic particles seen at energies a hundred million times what we can produce on Earth? I will discuss how the 3rd-generation South Pole Telescope, deployed in February at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and observing in the millimeter band, and the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, completed in 2011 at the same site, provide insight into these questions and are bringing the barely perceptible into view.

Speaker: Nathan Whitehorn, UC Berkeley