RSAA Colloquia / Seminars / Feast-of-Facts: Friday, 12 June 2015, 14:00-14:20; Duffield Lecture Theatre


Brad Tucker

"Mega-SH0ES"

The Hubble constant is one of the most important parameters in the cosmological model, setting both the size and age of the Universe. Present uncertainties in the standard cosmological model such as the dark energy equation-of-state and the properties of neutrinos, can be constrained by measurements of the Hubble constant to a higher precision. The Mega-SH0ES project aims exactly this bye measuring the Hubble constant with percent-level uncertainty. I will give an overview of the Mega-SH0ES project and the techniques it is using, including the Parallel Astrometric Spatial Scanning (PASS) on WFC3, Infrared Cepheids, and 17 New Type Ia Supernova host galaxies.