Nikhef-onderzoeker ontvangt FOM-Projectruimtesubsidie

14 oktober 2012

Nikhef-onderzoeker Marieke Postma heeft een projectruimtesubsidie ontvangen van de Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM).

Dr. Marieke Postma (Theorie) ontving deze voor haar voorstel Keeping track of time during inflation. De subsidie is bedoeld voor de financiering van 1 oio en 2 jaar een postdoc. 

De Projectruimte maakt kleinschalige projecten mogelijk voor fundamenteel onderzoek in de fysica met een vernieuwend karakter en een aantoonbare wetenschappelijke, industriĆ«le of maatschappelijke urgentie.  

Meer informatie over de projectruimtes op de website van FOM.

Over het voorstel:
Keeping track of time during inflation – Inflation is the idea that the early universe went through a period of very rapid expansion. It explains why our present universe is so large, flat, and (on large scales) homogeneous. In addition, quantum fluctuations — short bursts of energy at the subatomic level — during inflation provide the seeds for all structure in our universe. In 1990, this prediction of inflation was spectacularly confirmed by the COBE satellite; it observed the fluctuations as tiny variations in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which is quite literally the afterglow of the big bang. To further confront inflation with observations, in particular the upcoming precision data on the CMB from the Planck satellite, accurate theoretical calculations of the fluctuations are needed. I propose to construct the effective action for inflation, which properly accounts for quantum effects in a dynamical background. From it, all inflationary observables can be derived. Although generally applicable, the focus is on models in which the standard model Higgs field is responsible for inflation. This offers the exciting possibility to relate the properties of the Higgs boson, currently being probed by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, to what we see in the sky.