UNIVERSE+ Online Seminars (29/29)

by Eiichiro Komatsu

Wednesday Jul 15, 2026, 4:00 PM → 5:00 PM Europe/Berlin

This is the Online Seminar Series of the ERC Synergy Grant UNIVERSE+ 

• July 15, 4:00pm: Eiichiro Komatsu

           "Does the Universe distinguish between left and right? A tantalizing hint of cosmological parity violation"

About the speaker:
Eiichiro Komatsu is Director of the Department of Physical Cosmology at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany. His research combines theoretical physics with observational cosmology to investigate the origin, evolution, and composition of the Universe.

Before joining the Max Planck Institute in 2012, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University and later Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Texas Cosmology Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He obtained his PhD from Tohoku University in 2001 and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Professor Komatsu has received numerous prestigious distinctions, including the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Gruber Cosmology Prize, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Lancelot M. Berkeley Prize, the Chushiro Hayashi Prize, the Inoue Prize for Science, and the Nishina Memorial Prize. In 2026, he was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant for NewPhysCMB: Finding New Physics from the Polarized Light of the Cosmic Microwave Background.

Abstract:
Parity symmetry is violated in the weak interaction. Do the physical laws behind unsolved cosmological problems, such as dark matter and dark energy, also violate parity symmetry? The polarized light of the cosmic microwave background is sensitive to new physics that violates parity symmetry. In this presentation, we present a tantalizing hint of parity violation in the polarization data from two satellite missions: WMAP and Planck. This signal has also been observed in recent data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. Taken together, these findings suggest a cosmological parity violation with a statistical significance of 4 sigma. If this signal is confirmed in the future with higher statistical significance, it would have profound implications for the elusive nature of dark matter and dark energy.

 

Your registration is valid for the entire UNIVERSE+ Seminar Series, so there is no need to register individually for each session.

This activity is part of the ERC Synergy Grant UNIVERSE+ www.positive-geometry.com, funded by the European Union (ERC, UNIVERSE PLUS, 101118787). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.