Princeton University/Institute for Advanced Study Cosmology Seminar/Group Meeting

With increasingly precise measurements of the small-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB), the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (kSZ) effect has emerged as a powerful probe of cosmology and astrophysics through cross-correlations with galaxy surveys. I will begin by highlighting a novel technique for combining these data sets, developed in the context of probing the ionization history of the intergalactic medium. I will then demonstrate how this new statistic provides unique constraints on the distribution of “missing baryons” at low redshifts, thereby opening a new window on baryonic feedback and cosmological inferences from the small-scale distribution of matter. Finally, time permitting, I will review established applications, focusing on large-scale velocity reconstruction and its ability to test signatures of the early universe, such as primordial non-Gaussianity and compensated isocurvature perturbations.