Research Chair
Email: roy.maartens at gmail.com
The SKA will look deeper into the Universe and further back in time than any other telescope before it. I hold an SKA Research Chair which funds a team of postgraduates and postdocs. My research team aims to use maps of the distribution of galaxies in the Universe from the SKA precursor MeerKAT and the SKA, combined with maps from other surveys. These maps contain a wealth of information. They carry an imprint of the Dark Energy that is forcing the Universe to expand faster and faster. They also contain a ‘fossil’ record of the properties of the very early Universe. In addition, these maps allow us to test the foundations of our understanding of the Universe: (a) Einstein’s 1915 theory of General Relativity; (b) the large-scale smoothness and isotropy of the Universe.