Martin Sahlén

Docent in astronomy with specialization in astrophysics.

RESEARCH

2021-2026: PI, "The Galaxy – Dark Matter Connection with HST, JWST and EUCLID" (8 MSEK)

2022-2024: PI, "Searching for New Physics in the Early Universe" (1 MSEK)

2023-2027: PI, "Astronomical object classification and anomaly detection with complex spectroscopic 4MOST data sets" (4 MSEK)

TEACHING

Responsible for and teacher on the transdisciplinary course "Three Views on Cosmology" (10 hp).

Hemsida: http://www.astro.uu.se/~msahlen/

Martin Sahlén is docent and researcher in astronomy with specialization in astrophysics at Uppsala University. He studied at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and Cambridge, earned his PhD from the University of Sussex in 2009, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Cambridge, Stockholm and Oxford. He was a Fulbright fellow at Johns Hopkins, and a Natural Sciences fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. He joined Uppsala University in 2016.

Sahlén's research focuses on the large-scale structure of the Universe, and its connection to astrophysics and fundamental physics. In particular, he is investigating the very first generations of galaxies, and late-Universe galaxy distributions. Recent work includes the demonstration of the power of galaxy clusters and cosmic voids as probes of deviations from General Relativity and to measure the mass of neutrinos, the first cosmological parameter estimation based on cosmic voids, and discovery of a powerful new test of modified gravity theories. He is member of the 4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST), the BUFFALO survey, the Euclid Consortium, the SKA Observatory, and an external collaborator in the Dark Energy Survey. Sahlén also works on the philosophy of astrophysics and cosmology. His research was highlighted in “The Best Writing on Mathematics 2018”.

Theoretical and observational studies of the large-scale structure of the Universe through clusters of galaxies, voids, and the first galaxies in the Universe - to understand galaxy astrophysics/star formation, dark energy, dark matter, cosmic inflation, and the reionization process in the early Universe.

Participant in the scientific projects 4MOST, BUFFALO, Euclid, and SKA Observatory. External Collaborator in the Dark Energy Survey. Also participating in the scientific exploitation of data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the coming James Webb Space Telescope.

Theoretical studies of the philosophy of cosmology, such as model inference, fine-tuning of the constants of nature, and multiverse explanations.