Home Research Group Teaching Outreach Other Links		RESEARCH My current research interests are in theoretical astrophysics and cosmology. Short description of some of the topics I am thinking about (in no particular order) are below. Local group of galaxies, their history and how they may be used to understand the nature of dark matter. In terms of dark matter, I am specifically interested in questions such as the lifetime of dark matter, how cold it is and non-gravitational signatures of their presence in the local neighborhood. My collaborators and I have shown that the smallest members of our local group are very interesting laboratories to test our assumptions about dark matter. Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Polarization and Gravitational lensing of the CMB. This is one of the exciting new signals that the Planck satellite experiment will detect. My collaborators and I have proposed that this lensing signal (if not from Planck, then from a next generation experiment) can be used to deduce the mass of the neutrino, which we not yet measured in the laboratory. Dark energy interactions with the rest of the universe. Is it only gravitational and how we may get a handle on this issue? Specifically, I am looking at the coupling of matter and dark energy and how such couplings may be constrained with data. We have proposed that such couplings could lead to qualitatively new features that would be hard to explain in the context of models where this coupling is non-existent. Strong lensing data sets from future large area sky surveys. What can we learn about galaxy formation and cosmology in general from these data sets? Recent work by us and others have shown that these data sets may teach us a lot about galaxies form. Neutrinos from Supernovae. I am interested in the cosmic background of neutrinos from the all the supernovae that have ever occurred. My collaborators and I have proposed that this signal is detectable. If we are right, this would be the first detection of neutrinos from extra-galactic supernovae. I am also interested in the physics of neutrino emission from a supernova but haven't had much time to work on this fascinating topic.