| Hotspots on the Cosmic Microwave Background: Origin and Searches |
| Soubhik Koumar, UC Berkeley + LBL |
| Event Type: HEP Seminar |
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| Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM |
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| Location: 726 Broadway, 940, CCPP Seminar |
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| Abstract: Superheavy particles can get produced during the inflationary era of the primordial Universe. Owing to their large mass, they can give rise to significant perturbations in the spacetime metric around their locations. Such perturbations eventually would give rise to localized (hot)spots on the CMB. After describing the origin and properties of such hotspots, I will describe a few search strategies. In particular, I will demonstrate that neural networks can be versatile and powerful in looking for such hotspots and therefore constitute one of the unique probes of particle physics at very high energies. Link to the Event Video |