Cosmological models - observing locally, thinking globally
Jean-Philippe Uzan (Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris)

The construction of a representation of the universe relies on the laws of nature and on a series of astrophysical observations, as well as on how our local universe is representative of the universe as a whole. I will describe the hypothesis of our contemporary cosmological model and explain how some of them can be tested. I will finish by describing the more speculative developments and the new views on the universe that they lead to.

Short Bio
Jean-Philippe Uzan obtained his PhD from Paris XI university in 1998. He then was a postdoc at Geneva university and was hired by the CNRS in 1999, where he is now “directeur de recherche”. He works at the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris and is also an associate researcher of Cape Town university. His main works concern the tests of the underlying hypothesis of the standard cosmological model. It includes study of the topology of the universe, tests of general relativity on astrophysical scales (including test of the equivalence principle using fundamental constants) and tests of the Copernican principle. He has also worked on inflation and CMB theories, focusing mostly on non-Gaussianity. He has been teaching physics at the Ecole des Mines de Paris and Cosmology at the École Normale Superieure de Paris. He has co-authored the monography “Primordial cosmology” (OUP) and written several popular science books, among which two books for children.