Toby Lovick

PhD thesis: TBC

The standard model of the universe has been extremely successful in the last 25 years in explaining the large scale behaviour of the universe, from right after the big bang to the present day. However we know it cannot be the whole picture, there are small observational differences between theory and reality, as well as large tensions between different methods of measuring the parameters of this standard model. My PhD project focuses on two methods of resolving these tensions. Firstly the way we currently process raw astrophysical data (which due to lack of computing power in the past makes some simplifying assumptions) may be introducing a bias into the data, and the analysis pipeline needs to be reconsidered from the ground up. Secondly, I will be exploring new models of the universe, in an attempt to explain the behaviour of dark energy and the early universe theoretically.

Who or what inspired you to pursue your research interests?

Dark energy was only observationally discovered 25 years ago, and so there are still many unanswered and open questions in the field that drew me to astrophysics in my undergraduate studies. After this my master's supervisors were amazing in helping me get an experience of real research, and working with them led me to this PhD project. It's probably naive to think this way as a scientist, but discovering the true nature of dark energy truly feels to me like the final frontier of physics and that's why I'm pursuing it further.