András Kovács (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain)

The enigma of the largest cosmic structures

Abstract: The consensus ΛCDM (Lambda-Cold Dark Matter) model of cosmology has shown remarkable explanatory power over a variety of cosmic scales and epochs, and it narrates a reassuring story of a universe currently filled mostly with dark matter and dark energy. Yet, this explanation is not fully satisfactory because the actual nature of the dark components remains a puzzle. In this talk, I will review the most important new developments in cosmology and provide a summary of how the recently reported anomalies concerning the delicate balance of cosmic expansion and structure growth have further challenged the concordance model. In particular, I will focus on the analysis of the largest cosmic structures at 100 Megaparsec scales, and highlight my own contributions to state-of-the-art maps of the large-scale structure of the Universe, such as the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the ESA Euclid mission, and other upcoming sky-survey projects that may shed new light on the cosmic dark sector.

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