An Efficient Method for Computing the Likelihood of
Cosmological Parameters
by Peter Klinge
supervisor: Dr. Lado Samushia and Dr. Larry Weaver
Kansas State University Physics Department REU Program
This program is funded by the National Science Foundation through grant number PHYS-1461251. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Below, I describe the Project Overview and post my Final Report and Poster. I've also included some Useful Links.
Project
Overview: The study of cosmology involves many
parameters such as dark energy and dark matter. These parameters describe the
Universe and how it is changing. The calculations of these parameters often
require large amounts of computational resources. This was a mathematical
project whose purpose was to test a method that reduced the computational power
needed to calculate the values of these parameters. It assumes the
Gaussian shape that cosmological parameters often have with respect to a
likelihood function to find the values and margins of error of the parameters.
This method is very fast and worked well for data sets with a small number of
parameters, but when more parameters were used the percent errors became very
large.
Final Report: Click here to download my final report. Final Report pdf
Poster: Click here to download my poster. Poster pdf
I have found the following links particularly informative or useful:
American Physical Society Statements on Ethics