Ambitious theoretical physicist Dr. Evan McDonough is trying to understand and uncover the gravitational waves produced in the first moments of the universe. To help in his quest, Dr. McDonough has been awarded the inaugural University of Winnipeg Chancellor’s Emerging Research Award.
There is hope that gravitational waves from cosmic sources in the first moments in the history of the universe might be detectable in upcoming experiments, such as Simons Observatory.
Dr. Evan McDonough
Gravitational waves were discovered in 2017 at the LIGO experiment. As part of his research, Dr. McDonough will simulate the production of gravitational waves in the first moments of the universe. He will imprint this on telescope data using high performance computing and cutting-edge statistical methods applied to data gathered by telescopes around the world and in space.
“There is hope that gravitational waves from cosmic sources in the first moments in the history of the universe might be detectable in upcoming experiments, such as Simons Observatory,” shared Dr. McDonough.
Dr. McDonough’s research will be assisted by UWinnipeg undergraduate physics student Smit Panchal, UManitoba PhD student Dario Lorenzoni, in collaboration with Dr. David Kaiser at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Incidentally, Dr. Kaiser and Dr. McDonough have collaborated extensively since Dr. McDonough was a Banting Fellow at MIT in 2020.
Dr. McDonough and his team will study this as a Bayesian inference problem, and perform a statistical analysis using Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations.
To unlock the inference problem, they will look at the correlation of the gravitational wave signal with other observables, such as the scale-dependence of the universe, encoded in the cosmic microwave background radiation, the subject of physics Nobel laureate Dr. James Peebles, a former Manitoban.
In between his teaching and research, Dr. McDonough is the Director of the Winnipeg Institute for Theoretical Physics, a joint institute of UManitoba and UWinnipeg with a history of bringing in high-profile visitors to the UWinnipeg campus.
He also serves on the Scientific Council of the national Institute of Particle Physics, which plays a major role in supporting and steering the national particle physics community; and most recently, Dr. McDonough has been appointed to the Council of the Toronto-based Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics.
Dr. McDonough joined UWinnipeg in 2021 as an Assistant Professor.
The University of Winnipeg Chancellor’s Emerging Research Award is intended to sustain high levels of scholarly output and to retain high quality faculty who have made, and will continue to make, exceptional contributions to research in their field.
