Ana C. O. Leite
CAUP

Abstract
Understanding what constitutes dark energy is a key problem of modern cosmology. Astrophysical measurements of nature's fundamental constants can be used to study the properties of dark energy, either by themselves or in combination with other cosmological datasets. In recent work we discussed methods based on Principal Component Analysis to constrain the dark energy equation of state using Type Ia supernovae at low redshift and measurements of fundamental couplings at higher redshifts, in the context of ESPRESSO and CODEX. In this talk we will discuss how the results of this theoretical analysis can be applied in practice: how they will be calibrated by applying them to an existing dataset of UVES, and how they can be extrapolated to future spectrographs, in order to define an optimal observational strategy for them.

06 February 2013, 13:30

Centro de Astrofísica
Rua das Estrelas
4150-762 Porto