The department of Astrophysics, Cosmology and Fundamental Interactions (COSMO) is a newly-formed department in CBPF. COSMO is an active department of 9 faculty members, holding weekly seminars and journal clubs in various areas, organizing regular conferences and workshops, supervising many postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers, attracting a dynamic flow of national and international visitors, establishing collaborations with international research groups and institutions as well as lecturing advanced postgraduate courses. The research carried out in COSMO comprises (but is not limited to) the following areas:
ASTROPHYSICS AND GENERAL RELATIVITY
Astrophysical and cosmological applications of gravitational lensing. [Martin Makler]
Gravitational Waves: black hole inspirals in the extreme mass-ratio limit; gravitational self-force; ringdown. [Marc Casals]
High Energy Astrophysics: Supernova explosions, formation of neutron stars and their structure, study of phase transitions of superdense matter inside these objects, nucleosynthesis of heavy elements. [Sergio B. Duarte]
Neutrino physics and electroweak interactions: Interaction of atomic systems with electromagnetic radiation, mechanisms of neutrino production in astrophysical environments and in heavy ion physics. [Sergio B. Duarte]
Solutions of Heun Equations and their Applications: generalized spheroidal wave equation; Schrödinger equation and linear perturbations of space-times. [Bartolomeu Figueiredo]
Spectroscopy of Black Holes: quasinormal modes; classical stability in four and higher-dimensions; Green function. [Marc Casals]
COSMOLOGY
Astronomical Image Processing and Wide-field Surveys: object detection; modelling of the point-spread-function; galaxy structural parameters; quality assessment. [Martin Makler]
Dark Matter and Dark Energy: observational constraints from lensing; large-scale structure; Cosmic Microwave Background; galaxy clusters and supernovae; models and observational tests of dark matter and dark energy unification; heterogeneous cosmological models as alternatives to dark energy. [Martin Makler]
Gravitational Lensing: simulations and inverse modelling of gravitational arcs; arc identification and characterisation; weak lensing and galaxy clusters. [Martin Makler]
Out-of-equilibrium Relativistic Thermodynamics and Non-linear Electrodynamics: applications to cosmology; self-gravitating systems without singularity and to gravitational collapse.
Quantum Cosmology: bouncing models; primordial cosmology; theory of cosmological perturbations of quantum-mechanical origin and their imprints on the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation and large-scale structure. [Felipe Tovar, Nelson Pinto-Neto]
Quantum Foundations: Bohm-de Broglie interpretation of quantum mechanics; applications to quantum cosmology. [Felipe Tovar, Nelson Pinto-Neto]
NUCLEAR PHYSICS
Collisions of heavy ions at high energies: Nucleus-nucleus collisions and particle production, multiplicities, spectrum and angular distribution. Proton-core reactions in intermediate energies aiming application to spallation reactions in nuclear waste reprocessing reactors. [Emil L. Medeiros,Sergio B. Duarte]
Exotic nuclei, hypernucleus, fission and fusion: Nuclear structure far from stability line, neutron-rich nuclei and proton-rich nuclei. Hypernuclei and their decays. Study of highly asymmetric fission and fusion. [Emil L. Medeiros,Sergio B. Duarte]
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY (IN FLAT OR CURVED SPACE-TIME)
Electroweak theory: anomalous three- and four-vertices. [José A. Helayël]
Field theories that violate Lorentz and CP symmetries. [José A. Helayël]
Gauge anomalies in quantum field theory. [Sebastião A. Dias]
Non-Maxwellian extensions and non-linearity in Electromagnetism. [José A. Helayël]
Quantum Aspects of Quantum Gravity. [Antonio Accioly,José A. Helayël]
Quantum Black Holes: evaporation via Hawking radiation; black hole thermodynamics; information paradox; 'gauge-gravity' duality. [Marc Casals]
Spin and velocity dependence of potentials obtained from quantum fields. [Antonio Accioly,José A. Helayël]
Supersymmetry and Supergravity in various dimensions. [José A. Helayël]
SOCIETY APPLICATIONS
Medical Physics: Uses of accelerator beams for therapeutic applications in tumors. Optimization of imaging techniques for diagnosis in general radiology and mammography. [Sergio B. Duarte]
Physics teaching and science outreach. [José A. Helayël, Sebastião A. Dias]