Building the cosmic web out of thin air

Just like our houses are built along streets, galaxies – each the home to billions of stars – are forming structures along the underlying dark matter. Some are aligned in walls and filaments, some clustered together in groups, and some isolated in voids. The web-like patterns of the galaxy distribution can tell us the story of our universe; its expansion, its growth and its underlying physics. In this talk, Laura Wolz will illustrate a new way to map the cosmic web by using the most fundamental and abundant element of our universe: cold hydrogen gas as seen by radio telescopes.

Dr Laura Wolz is a UKRI Future Leader Fellow and Presidential Fellow at the University ofManchester since 2019. She is working in the field of cosmology since her undergraduate inMunich, Germany.Her current work is focused on cosmology with radio telescopes, particularly how we can observe large volumes of the Universe via the radio emission from hydrogen gas. She and her group spend much of their time on preparations for up-coming cosmology surveys with the SKA and analysis of the on-going observations by SKA pre-cursor telescope MeerKAT. Before moving to Manchester, she worked at the University of Melbourne for 5 years as research fellow.Laura is passionate to make scientific research a welcoming space for all to participate in.