{"id":16,"date":"2018-09-03T12:11:46","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T15:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cosmos.fisica.ufrn.br\/?page_id=16"},"modified":"2023-03-21T13:32:25","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T16:32:25","slug":"research","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/cosmos.fisica.ufrn.br\/index.php\/research\/","title":{"rendered":"Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

The members of the group are interested in a wide range of topics in theoretical physics ranging from the physics of the early and late-time universe, modified gravity, gravitational waves, collider physics, and direct and indirect detection of dark matter. Members of our group also participate in international collaborations such as J-PAS<\/a>, J-PLUS<\/a>, the Future Circular Collider at CERN, and the Cherenkov Telescope Array CTA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our research broadly falls into the following topics:<\/p>\n

Cosmology (<\/strong>Rodrigo Holanda,\u00a0<\/strong>L\u00e9o Medeiros,\u00a0<\/strong>Raimundo Silva<\/strong>):<\/strong><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole, of its origin and evolution. Over the past few decades,\u00a0a very good description of\u00a0 the large-scale structure of the universe, the standard cosmological model (SCM), has emerged,\u00a0incorporating into the highly successful standard big-bang scenario the results of cosmological observations and extending our understanding of the Universe to times as early as 10-35<\/sup>\u00a0sec, when the largest structures observed today were still quantum fluctuations.<\/p>\n

The SCM assumes Einstein\u2019s General Relativity and the Cosmological Principle and has the support of a set of independent observations, such as the Hubble diagram of type Ia supernovae, the temperature anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background and the pattern of galaxy clustering. In the context of the SCM, these observations suggest that we live in a flat, accelerating universe composed by\u00a0\u223c\u00a01\/4 of matter (baryonic + dark) and\u00a0\u223c 3\/4 of an exotic component with large negative pressure, named dark energy. Our work aims at exploring observationally cosmological theories in order to better understand the universe\u2019s evolution, especially the physical mechanisms behind the early and late-time cosmic acceleration.<\/p>\n

Gravitation (L\u00e9o Medeiros, Rodrigo Holanda, Emmanuele Orazi):<\/strong><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Modifications in the structure of General Relativity (GR) have been proposed since its invention in the early 20th century motivated by different reasons, such attempts to build a quantum theory for gravity, generation of expansion regime in the universe, existence of possible extra dimensions, etc. In recent years, however, a number of cosmological observations indicate that the present expansion of the Universe is accelerating. These findings led cosmologists to postulate the existence of an exotic component of dark energy, capable of explaining the accelerating rate while keeping GR unchanged. Alternatively, some researchers advanced the idea that perhaps we are observing the first deviations from GR on the largest scales.<\/p>\n

Many of the elaborated proposals for GR extensions start with modifications of the Einstein-Hilbert action. Among these proposals we can mention the f(R) theories \u2013 built from arbitrary functions of the Ricci scalar curvature \u2013 and the scalar-tensor theories, where part of the gravitational interaction is described by a scalar degree of freedom. The research line of modified gravity developed by our group follows mainly this kind of approach, with focus on scalar-tensor models and also investigating into whether f(R) theories are compatible with different kinds of currently available cosmological data..<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

Particle and Astroparticle Physics (Farinaldo Queiroz):<\/strong><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

We are made of atoms and atoms are comprised of subatomic particles such as electrons and quarks. Nevertheless, atoms make up only 4% of the universe. The rest is unknown. Not totally unknown though because we have observational evidence that the universe is also occupied by some exotic matter that accounts for nearly 85% of the matter content in our universe, also known as dark matter. There are about 10000 dark matter particles passing through a human body per year, but how come have we never caught one? Dark matter particles are part of our lives, but we do not know their identity nor what they are made of.<\/p>\n

Therefore, we are searching for new methods and data sets that could potentially represent a major step toward the nature of dark matter, which is a major open problem in science. Moreover, we carry out projects that connect several observables in the context of theoretical particle physics such as the matter-antimatter asymmetry, flavor physics and model building and explore their collider signatures.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The members of the group are interested in a wide range of topics in theoretical physics ranging from the physics of the early and late-time universe, modified gravity, gravitational waves, collider physics, and direct and indirect detection of dark matter. Members of our group also participate in international collaborations such as J-PAS, J-PLUS, the Future […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmos.fisica.ufrn.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmos.fisica.ufrn.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmos.fisica.ufrn.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmos.fisica.ufrn.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmos.fisica.ufrn.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":48,"href":"https:\/\/cosmos.fisica.ufrn.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":547,"href":"https:\/\/cosmos.fisica.ufrn.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16\/revisions\/547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmos.fisica.ufrn.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}