About
Ue-Li Pen is an astrophysicist whose research focuses on the cosmic distribution of ordinary and dark matter.
Until recently, there was no direct measurement of dark matter, and the vast majority of ordinary (baryonic) matter was unaccounted for. Recently, new tools, consisting of gravitational lensing and the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, have enabled mapping of the cosmic inventory and distribution. Since direct controlled experiments are difficult to perform on the universe, Pen uses massively parallel computers, including the McKenzie cluster at CITA, to simulate and quantify the gravitational dynamics of dark and baryonic matter.
Awards
- 1st Place, Digital Equipment Co. and Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center Technical Computing Contest, 1995
- Princeton Porter Ogden Jacobus Fellowship, 1994
- Ray Grimm Computational Physics Prize, 1994
Relevant Publications
Pen, U.L. et al. “Power Spectra in Global Defect Theories of Cosmic Structure Formation.” R. 79 (September 1997): 1611.