Observational Cosmology

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rahuldatta
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 8:39 pm

Observational Cosmology

Post by rahuldatta » Sat Oct 17, 2009 10:07 pm

Hello members,

Myself Rahul from India. I have an undergraduate degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from a reasonable college (National Institute of Technology) and presently working for the Indian Space Research Organization.

I wanna pursue a Ph.D. in a field which would involve constraining the modern theories of particle physics through experimental gravitational physics and observational cosmology, i.e., a field which would be some sort of an interdisciplinary between engineering and fundamental physics, in a way providing a bridge between the language of scientists and engineers keeping in mind that theoretical physics badly needs to be shown the right direction through experiments.

Could anyone suggest some good OBSERVATIONAL COSMOLOGY programs?

I am taking the Physics GRE this November 7. My general GRE scores are as follows:
V:640
Q:800
AWA:4(screwed)

I am expecting around 850 in PGRE
I have some reading projects related to Radio astronomy and have a poster presentation.

Thanks in advance.....

rahuldatta
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 8:39 pm

Re: Observational Cosmology

Post by rahuldatta » Sat Oct 17, 2009 10:09 pm

And also what sort of schools should be realistic to target for me in terms of rankings???
Kindly mention the names of the schools if anybody has any info

surjective
Posts: 39
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2008 1:16 am

Re: Observational Cosmology

Post by surjective » Sun Oct 18, 2009 3:00 am

It sounds like you are interested in instrumentation as it relates to observational cosmology.

U Arizona (I think it's technically their optical engineering and not physics department, but whatever) has a lot of guys working on designing and making super-huge-and-awesome telescopes, including a bunch of parts for LSST, etc.

Stanford is kind of the center for LSST

Berkeley is pretty much a huge center for observational cosmology (CMB experiments, the soon-to-maybe-be-approved supernova sattelite JDEM, the south pole telescope, etc.)

Chicago is also a great place for this kind of work (Dark Energy Survey, South Pole Telescope, etc.)

Also good, but with a bit fewer people: CalTech.

I know I just gave a list of super hard-to-get-into schools, but a lot of instrumentalists have trouble finding good students. If you were to contact them, and explain your excellent engineering qualifications, you might find that they could you you with admissions. Maybe.

You might want to also try looking at the abstracts of the annual American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting. See if you can find the abstracts of the experimentalists sections, then see where they are from.

Best of luck!

physics_auth
Posts: 163
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2009 7:24 pm

Re: Observational Cosmology

Post by physics_auth » Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:40 am

rahuldatta wrote:
... a field which would involve constraining the modern theories of particle physics through experimental gravitational physics and observational cosmology, i.e., a field which would be some sort of an interdisciplinary between engineering and fundamental physics, in a way providing a bridge between the language of scientists and engineers keeping in mind that theoretical physics badly needs to be shown the right direction through experiments.
If I understood correctly, you have in mind that some interdisciplinary between engineering and physics could better dictate the direction towards which experimental particle physics and cosmology should proceed as compared to the directions dictated by the development of theoretical particle physics and theoretical cosmology. Is that it? How exactly do you believe that this interdisciplinary could -in some way- substitute for the theoretical physics? I think that the othodox way is the hand-in-hand progress of the experimental and theoretical field. This sounds a bit strange to me. For example, if you don't have some theory how could you check if the results you get from experiment are correct? How could you interpret them? How could they be reliable for the scientific community and all that stuff? What gap do you believe there is between scientists and engineers as far as the topic you broached is concerned? I just wonder ... . Last but not least, I doubt if a drastic restraint could be placed to topics such as cosmology or that stuff (I emphasize on their theoretical side here). This physics field pertains to such large scales that ... .



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