The Growth of Large-Scale Structure: Dark Energy’s Imprint on Galaxy Distribution

Project Description:

Our current understanding of the Universe reveals that it is dominated by two mysterious components: Dark Matter and Dark Energy. While Dark Matter acts as gravitational glue holding galaxies together, Dark Energy drives the accelerated expansion of the Universe, pushing galaxies apart. Gravity naturally drives the condensation of matter into stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies through gravitational collapse. However, Dark Energy works against this process, slowing down the growth of cosmic structures. By studying how structures grow over time, we can learn about the properties of Dark Energy and test our cosmological models. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA), being built primarily in South Africa, along with other surveys like DESI, Euclid, and LSST, will provide unprecedented high-precision observations of galaxy distributions across cosmic time, allowing us to probe Dark Energy with remarkable accuracy.

Research Area:

Astrophysics

Project Level:

Honours

This Project Is Offered At The Following Node(s):

(UCT)(UKZN)(NWU)

Special Requirements:

Introduction to General Relativity or Cosmology, and Computational Physics (Python)