Speaker
Description
I was a CITA National Fellow at the University of British Columbia from 2011 to 2014, during which I worked extensively on the peculiar velocity field using then state-of-the-art data from the 6dF Galaxy Survey. In the later stage of my postdoctoral research, the kinematic Sunyaev–Zeldovich (kSZ) effect emerged as an increasingly powerful and complementary probe of peculiar velocities and large-scale structure, motivating my use of Planck survey data to measure the kSZ signal and to investigate the long-standing problem of missing baryons. In this talk, I will review several key issues related to peculiar velocities and the kSZ effect, including: (1) measurements of large-scale bulk flows; (2) their physical interpretation, particularly in cases where the inferred bulk flow exceeds predictions of the standard $\Lambda$CDM model; and (3) the role of the kSZ effect in revealing the distribution of missing baryons in the Universe. I will discuss both foundational results and future prospects in this rapidly developing field.
