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ESI Special
Topics: April 2007
Citing URL: http://esi-topics.com/cosmic/interviews/Wang_Tegmark.html |
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An INTERVIEW with Prof. Yun Wang and Prof. Max Tegmark
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our Special Topics analysis of cosmic microwave background
radiation research, the paper, "New dark energy constraints
from supernovae, microwave background, and galaxy
clustering," (Wang Y and Tegmark M, Phys. Rev. Lett.
92[24]: art. no. 241302, 18 June 2004) is ranked at #5 among
papers in this topic published in the past two years. It is
also designated as a Highly Cited Paper in Physics in
Essential
Science IndicatorsSM, with 95
citations to date. Below, Professor Yun Wang answers a few
questions about this paper and her work in the field.
Professor Wang is currently Associate Professor of Cosmology
at the University of Oklahoma. Her partner on the 2004
paper, Professor Max Tegmark, currently hails from MIT. |
 Please
tell us a little about your educational background and early research.
I got a B.S. in Physics from Tsinghua University in Beijing, P.R.
China. Upon graduation from Tsinghua University, I came to the U.S.
for graduate studies in Physics at Carnegie Mellon University, where
I got an M.S. in Physics and a Ph.D. in Physics with a thesis in
cosmology.
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The expansion of the Universe has been
observed to accelerate due to the influence
of an unknown cause (dubbed 'dark energy'). |
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My early research was in early-Universe cosmology, in particular,
models and tests for inflation (which explains what happened in the
Universe in the first tiny fraction of a second).
What
drew you to this field of study?
As more observational data became available, I was drawn by the
solid link to reality provided by the interpretation of data, and
excited by the opportunity for discovery.
Your
2004 Physical Review Letters paper, "New dark energy constraints
from supernovae, microwave background, and galaxy clustering," is among
the 10 most-cited papers on CMB published in the past two years. Would
you please sum up this paper and its implications for our readers?
The expansion of the Universe has been observed to accelerate due
to the influence of an unknown cause (dubbed "dark energy"). Our
paper made the most accurate measurements to date of the dark energy
density rho_X as a function of cosmic time, constraining it in a
rather model-independent way, using the spectacular new high-redshift
supernova observations from the HST/GOODS program and previous
supernova, CMB and galaxy clustering data.
We found that Einstein's vanilla scenario where rho_X(z) is
constant remains consistent with these new tight constraints, and
that a cosmic Big Crunch or Big Rip is more than 50 gigayears away
for a broader class of models allowing such cataclysmic events. Our
paper also established a due procedure for using observational data
to probe dark energy, in terms of proper theoretical assumptions and
the consistent combination of different observational data sets.
Our findings have been held up by more recent observational data, and
our analysis technique has become the standard in the field.
If
you are free to discuss them, please tell us about your current
projects.
I am focused on dark energy search. I continue to advance the
basic framework for extracting dark energy constraints from
cosmological data, develop strategies for optimizing future surveys
to probe dark energy, and examine complementary probes of dark
energy.
Professor Yun Wang
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Oklahoma
Norman, OK, USA
Professor Max Tegmark
Department of Physics
MIT
Cambridge, MA, USA
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Prof. Yun Wang and Prof. Max Tegmark's
most-cited paper with 95 cites to date: |
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Wang Y and
Tegmark M, "New dark energy constraints from supernovae,
microwave background, and galaxy clustering," Phys. Rev.
Lett. 92(24): art. no. 241302, 18 June 2004. |
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Source:
Essential Science Indicators |
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Related
Links: |
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http://www.nhn.ou.edu/~wang/ |
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ESI Special
Topics: April 2007
Citing URL: http://esi-topics.com/cosmic/interviews/Wang_Tegmark.html
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