Kirit Karkare
Assistant Professor, Physics
Kirit Karkare is an assistant professor of physics at Boston University. As an experimental cosmologist, he builds detectors and telescopes to observe faint radiation from the Big Bang and the first stars and galaxies to form. He completed a B.S. at Caltech, a Ph.D. at Harvard, and was a postdoc at UChicago and a staff scientist at SLAC before joining BU in 2025.
Presentation Title:
Probing the Beginning of Time with Superconducting Detectors at the Ends of the Earth
Abstract:
Over the past century, we have pieced together a remarkable history of the cosmos: the universe began in a hot, dense state 13.8 billion years ago and rapidly expanded, forming galaxies, stars, planets, and eventually life. This story is supported by observations of faint photons from the distant universe. I will discuss how measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) – the leftover radiation from the Big Bang – anchor our understanding of cosmology. I will introduce our experimental program, which deploys and operates CMB telescopes at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Progress in CMB science has been largely driven by advances in detector and photonics technology. I will describe how superconducting sensors, operating at the quantum limit and printed into monolithic focal planes using state-of-the-art nanofabrication techniques, will teach us about the universe at the earliest times and highest energies imaginable.