University of Pennsylvania Astrophysics Group Seminar

ABSTRACT: One of the last frontiers of cosmology is the "dark age" during which the first galaxies formed and lit up the Universe, roughly 200 million years after the Big Bang. Existing telescopes provide tantalizing clues about the complexities of this era, but a variety of observational challenges stand in the way of a complete picture. I will summarize our current understanding of this epoch as well as describe new techniques to probe the dark ages, focusing on a suite of low-frequency radio telescopes that hope to unlock the astrophysics of the first galaxies and black holes.