The field of cosmology is just the small matter of understanding the entire universe: how it began, how it works, and how it’s changing. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP) at the University of Chicago, which brings together theoretical and experimental astronomers and physicists to investigate these expansive questions within the University’s distinctly interdisciplinary culture.
Established in 2001 as the Center for Cosmological Physics, it became KICP in 2004 after receiving an endowment from The Kavli Foundation, which ensured the institute’s permanence at UChicago. There are 20 Kavli Institutes across the world focused on astrophysics, nanoscience, neuroscience, and theoretical physics. UChicago hosts one of six astrophysics-based Kavli Institutes, along with Peking University-Beijing, MIT, Cambridge, Stanford, and the University of Tokyo.
This past June, more than 160 current and former KICP members from UChicago gathered at a conference to celebrate cosmology’s past, present and future. The conference included special talks, a poster session, and an evening at the Adler Planetarium featuring a performance by The Spectral Distortions (generally regarded as our universe’s premier physics punk band).
We spoke with KICP’s David N. Schramm Director Abigail Vieregg about the event, the institute’s mission and accomplishments, and her goals for the future.
What is the mission of the Kavli Institute at UChicago?
The mission of KICP is to deepen our understanding of the fundamental physics driving the evolution of the universe—that’s cosmology in a nutshell. We’re trying to push the forefront of the field and figure out where we can make the next big discoveries.
I’ve learned that achieving this comes down to the people: the postdocs, graduate students, and faculty. We’re building a community where people can come and collaborate across boundaries. The theme of collaboration came up over and over during our conference—that’s how we’ve been so successful.
What is the most important goal to you as director of KICP?
Day-to-day, I spend a lot of time and energy creating an exciting environment that fosters productivity and supports the best research possible, which in turn helps attract the best people to our institute. This involves organizing conferences and workshops and inviting visitors to stimulate collaboration. I also encourage activities such as seminars and even pop-up coffee bars to engage postdocs and grad students and build a strong interconnected community. Sometimes the students will bring me fun ideas, and I’ll help make those happen. I feel like my job is to say “yes” to good things, right?
Ultimately, the most important goal is scientific discovery. That’s why we’re here—to advance cosmology by nurturing and empowering our scientists to make new discoveries about the fundamental workings of the universe.
Let’s talk about some of those discoveries. What are the most notable achievements from KICP over the past 20 years?
Two projects immediately come to mind—one is the South Pole Telescope, which KICP was integral in developing. The Kavli Institute provided seed funding, and it has grown into an extremely successful project led by John Carlstrom and now also led by Bradford Benson and Thomas Crawford.
When an idea is just starting to take shape, a place like the Kavli Institute is incredibly valuable, not only because we can provide support to help develop the idea so that later we can apply for federal support but also for the intellectual connections it fosters. For example, we have John [Carlstrom], who is designing a telescope to measure the cosmic microwave background (CMB), sitting next to someone like Wayne Hu, a world-leading theorist on the cosmic microwave background.
The South Pole Telescope has discovered B-mode polarization in the CMB, measured numerous galaxy clusters across a large redshift range, and measured the power spectrum of the CMB out to extremely small scales with extremely high precision, which tells us about the physics driving the evolution of the universe.
Another major achievement I’d point to is the Dark Energy Survey (DES), on which Josh Frieman has served as director. The DES was ultimately a Fermilab-led project facilitated by KICP’s strong ties with our national labs. Because we have more flexibility on the university side, we can offer early-stage support and resources to help get a project off the ground.
The Dark Energy Camera located on a telescope in Chile surveyed galaxies mainly to constrain the nature of dark energy. But as it turns out, if you have a great instrument, you can do all kinds of science, and the DES has achieved so much more than it set out to. For example, DES discovered dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way—which is especially exciting because dwarf galaxies are a great place to look for the effects of dark matter.
—Sam Marsden
