Tessa Baker

Summary

I'm a cosmologist, working with both gravitational waves and electromagnetic observations to probe the fundamental laws of our universe. Much of my research centres around testing the laws of gravity that govern the largest cosmological scales, as a route to understanding the apparent dark sectors of our universe (dark energy, potentially dark matter).

Research interests

Here are some of the key focus areas of my current research program:

Development of bright and dark gravitational wave sirens methods. These are two of leading methods we can extract cosmological parameters and test large-scale gravitational laws with gravitational waves.
Novel techniques to complete galaxy catalogues. Galaxy surveys are a key ingredient of the dark sirens technique mentioned above, but they miss lots of faint galaxies. Reconstructing these `invisible' galaxies allows us to maximise the cosmology we can do with gravitational wave detections.
Cosmological simulations in theories of gravity beyond GR. Simulations are essential for modelling the smaller (nonlinear) scales of the cosmic web. However, these simulations are only available in General Relativity and a handful of other well-studied models. My group is developing a new, flexible simulation code called Hi-COLA which can evolve the universe under a much broader set of gravity models.
Gravitational wave astronomy is still a relatively new field. I'm particularly interested in understanding how to best combine these new observations with `traditional' electromagnetic surveys. Since the two kinds of data contain complementary information, we can maximise our cosmological results by jointly inferring constraints from both sets simultaneously.

I carry out some of the above research in collaboration with major telescopes and gravitational wave facilities. I am a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, LISA, the Vera Rubin Observatory and Euclid.

Research outputs

2024

Magnification and evolution bias of transient sources: GWs and SNIa

Baker, T., Clarkson, C., Fonseca, J., Zazzera, S.

20 May 2024, In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2024, 05, 31p., 095

Testing the nature of gravitational wave propagation using dark sirens and galaxy catalogues

Baker, T., Chen, A., Gray, R.

22 Feb 2024, In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2024, 02, 33p., 035

The clustering of dark sirens' invisible host galaxies

Baker, T., Dalang, C.

21 Feb 2024, In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2024, 2, 31p., 024

2023

Fast production of cosmological emulators in modified gravity: the matter power spectrum

Baker, T., Fiorini, B., Koyama, K.

22 Dec 2023, In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2023, 12, 26p., 045

Joint cosmological and gravitational-wave population inference using dark sirens and galaxy catalogues

Baker, T., Beirnaert, F., Chen, A., Ghosh, A., Ghosh, T., Gray, R., Karathanasis, C., Leyde, K., Mastrogiovanni, S., More, S., Revenu, B., Romano, A. E., Turski, C., Vallejo, S.

12 Dec 2023, In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2023, 12, 35p., 023

Cosmology with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna

Annis, J., Ares, F. R., Auclair, P., Avelino, P. P., Avgoustidis, A., Bacon, D., Baker, T., Barausse, E., Barreiro, T., Bartolo, N., Belgacem, E., Bellomo, N., Ben-Dayan, I., Bertacca, D., Besancon, M., Blanco-Pillado, J. J., Blas, D., Boileau, G., Bonilla, A., Bonvin, C., Bosso, P., Calabrese, M., Calcagni, G., Caldwell, R., Caprini, C., Carbone, C., Cembranos, J. A. R., Chala, M., Chang, C., Chen, H., Chernoff, D., Christensen, N., Clesse, S., Clough, K., Comelli, D., Congedo, G., Contaldi, C., Crisostomi, M., Criswell, A., Croon, D., Cui, Y., Cusin, G., Cutting, D., Dalang, C., Das, S., Dayal, P., Desjacques, V., Dimastrogiovanni, E., Domcke, V., Dorsch, G. C., Durrer, R., Easther, R., Escoffier, S., Ezquiaga, J. M., Fasiello, M., Ferrans, S., Figueroa, D. G., Flauger, R., Franciolini, G., Frusciante, N., Fryer, C., Fumagalli, J., Gair, J., Garcia-Bellido, J., Gordon, C., Gould, O., Hendry, M., Hindmarsh, M., Holz, D., Hooper, D. C., Iacconi, L., Jain, R. K., Jenkins, A. C., Jinno, R., Joana, C., Kajfasz, E., Karnesis, N., Konstandin, T., Kopp, J., Koushiappas, S. M., Koyama, K., Kozaczuk, J., Kumar, U., Kunz, M., Kuroyanagi, S., Laghi, D., Lagos, M., Lewicki, M., Lilley, M., Lizarraga, J., Lobo, F. S. N., Lombriser, L., Luca, V. D., Madge, E., Maggiore, M., Maleknejad, A., Malhotra, A., Mancarella, M., Mandic, V., Mangiagli, A., Martins, C. J. A. P., Matarrese, S., Mazumdar, A., Meerburg, P. D., Meyer, R., Mimoso, J. P., Morales, E. R., Mukherjee, S., Musco, I., Nardini, G., Nesseris, S., No, J. M., Nunes, N., Oikonomou, V., Orlando, G., Pacucci, F., Palmese, A., Papanikolaou, T., Peloso, M., Petiteau, A., Pieroni, M., Pilo, L., Pinol, L., Pol, A. R., Pozzo, W. D., Pratten, G., Prokopec, T., Quenby, J., Raccanelli, A., Rastgoo, S., Renaux-Petel, S., Renzini, A. I., Ricciardone, A., Riotto, A., Roest, D., Rollo, R., Romano, J. D., Rummukainen, K., Sakellariadou, M., Saltas, I. D., Scalisi, M., Schimd, C., Schmitz, K., Schwaller, P., Secroun, A., Sergijenko, O., Servant, G., Silva, A. d., Simakachorn, P., Sopuerta, C. F., Sorbo, L., Sousa, L., Speri, L., Steer, D. A., Tamanini, N., Tasinato, G., Tereno, I., Tolley, A., Torrado, J., Unal, C., Urrestilla, J., Vagenas, E. C., Vennin, V., Vernieri, D., Vernizzi, F., Vis, J. v. d., Volonteri, M., Wachter, J. M., Wands, D., Wardell, B., Weir, D. J., Weygaert, R. v. d., Witkowski, L. T., Zhdanov, V. I., Zumalacárregui, M., Zwart, S. P., Çalışkan, M., Özsoy, O., Świeżewska, B.

23 Aug 2023, In: Living Reviews in Relativity. 26, 5, 254p., 5

View all my research outputs

Professor Tessa Baker