Pierre Burger is a postdoctoral fellow working with Prof. Mike Hudson. He obtained his PhD degree from the University of Bonn in Germany. His research focuses on observational cosmology and the large-scale structure of the Universe concentrating on the information content beyond Gaussian statistics.
Title: Cosmology from Higher-order Statistics in the KiDS-1000 data
Abstract: Commonly two-point statistics of weak lensing and galaxy positions are used to infer cosmological parameters since they can be modelled accurately, and systematic inaccuracies are well understood. Two-point statistics are excellent for capturing the entire information content of a Gaussian random field. However, non-linear gravitational instabilities create a significant amount of non-Gaussian features during the evolution of the Universe, such that the local matter distribution departs strongly from a Gaussian field. Therefore, higher-order statistics are needed to extract all the available information in the local LSS of matter and galaxies. This presentation considers two different kinds of higher-order statistics, the so-called density split statistics for gravitational lensing and a combination of second- and third-order shear statistics.