Thursday, October 29

AT&T Conference Center, Classroom 105 [map]

9:10-9:20

Welcome & Texas Cosmology Center

Eiichiro Komatsu ~ UT Austin

pdf

9:20-9:30

Welcome

Mary Ann Rankin ~ Dean of the College of Natural Sciences

DARK ENERGY

9:30-9:50

Supernovae and the Accelerating Universe

Nick Suntzeff ~ Texas A&M

pdf ~ abstract

Since 1998 when we discovered that the local universe was in acceleration, the existence of a type of "dark energy" has been verified by a number of other observations including both distance measurements and the linear growth of structure at the largest scales in the Universe. The intrinsic luminosity of thermonuclear explosions of white dwarfs (Type Ia supernovae) still are the most accurate way to measure the local acceleration and the equation of state of dark energy. I will review the latest results in the physics of the explosion of a Type Ia, the value of the equation of state parameter, and future experiments to help us understand the nature of this mysterious energy.

9:50-10:10

Cosmology with the SDSS II Supernova Survey

Craig Wheeler ~ UT Austin

pdf ~ abstract

10:10-10:30

Type Ia Supernovae

Kevin Krisciunas ~ Texas A&M

pdf

10:30-11:00

Break

11:00-11:20

Hobby-Eberly Dark Energy Experiment

Karl Gebhardt or Gary Hill ~ UT Austin

pdf

11:20-11:40

The Dark Energy Survey

Darren DePoy ~ Texas A&M

11:40-12:00

Constraining dark energy with an improved measurement of the Hubble constant

Lucas Macri ~ Texas A&M

pdf [13MB] ~ abstract

12:00-1:30

Lunch
Tejas Dining Room

1:30-2:00

SPECIAL TALK
Carbon Monoxide Line Emission as a CMB Foreground: Tomography of the Star Forming Universe

Rashid Sunyaev ~ MPI

pdf

2:00-3:00

Poster Session

3:00-3:20

The growth rate index of large scale structure as a probe of cosmic acceleration

Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki ~ UT Dallas

pdf ~ abstract

3:20-3:40

A transparent instance of how Lambda contributes to the bending of light

Wolfgang Rindler ~ UT Dallas

pdf ~ abstract

STRUCTURE FORMATION

3:40-4:00

Why does environment matter?

Kim-Vy Tran ~ Texas A&M

pdf ~ abstract

4:00-4:30

Break

4:30-4:50

Searching for the First Galaxies

Steve Finkelstein ~ Texas A&M

pdf ~ abstract

4:50-5:10

Cosmic Reionization

Paul Shapiro ~ UT Austin

pdf [7MB] ~ abstract

5:10-5:30

Simulating cosmological reionization with Enzo

Daniel Reynolds ~ SMU

pdf ~ abstract

5:30-7:00

Reception
M3 Pre-function

7:00-9:00

Dinner
Salon DE

Friday, October 30

AT&T Conference Center, Amphitheatre 204 [map]

DARK ENERGY, INFLATION, AND STRINGS

9:30-9:50

F-ast Proton Decay

Dimitri Nanopoulos ~ Texas A&M

pdf

9:50-10:10

The Horava-Lifshitz and its Applications to Cosmology and Astrophysics

Anzhong Wang ~ Baylor

pdf ~ abstract

10:10-10:30

Investigations of the String Landscape

Gerald Cleaver ~ Baylor

abstract

10:30-11:00

Break

11:00-11:20

Asymptotically Safe Inflation

Steven Weinberg ~ UT Austin

pdf

11:20-11:40

String Theory and Inflation

Melanie Becker ~ Texas A&M

pdf ~ abstract

DARK MATTER

11:40-12:00

Dark Matter at the LHC

Bhaskar Dutta ~ Texas A&M

pdf

12:00-1:30

Lunch
Tejas Dining Room

1:30-2:00

SPECIAL TALK
Bose-Einstein Condensation of Dark Matter Axions

Pierre Sikivie ~ Univ. of Florida

pdf ~ abstract

2:00-2:20

The Texas Dark Matter Project: Constraints on Dark Matter Axion Models from White Dwarf Evolution

Don Winget ~ UT Austin

pdf

2:20

Adjourn