Draft:Daniel J. Ballard

This article is about the cosmologist. For the Northern Irish football player, see Daniel Ballard.

Daniel J. Ballard

Daniel J. Ballard, also known as Dan Ballard, is a British cosmologist, best known for his work on gravitational lensing. Ballard is a postgraduate researcher at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy, part of the University of Sydney's School of Physics.

Ballard is enthusiastic about making academic research accessible to all and has acted as a host for the YouTube channel Field of View. As a member of this team, Ballard won the 'Highly Commended' Newcomer award at the SEPnet Public Engagement and Outreach Awards.

Education and Early Research

Originally from Shepshed in Leicestershire, Ballard attended the Shepshed High School and Hind Leys Community College, which later merged to form Iveshead School. From 2015 to 2018, Ballard studied Physics and Music at Cardiff University, also known as Prifysgol Caerdydd, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours. During this time, Ballard completed a research project titled Fourier Analysis and Psychoacoustic Observations on the Imperfect Vibrations of Piano Strings. From 2018 to 2019 Ballard studied for a Master of Science in Astrophysics also at Cardiff University, where he obtained a Distinction for his research project titled Virtual Reality for Galactic Halo Catalogue and Particle Simulation Data Visualisation in Cosmology.

In 2024, Ballard was awarded a PhD for the project Λ and CDM According to Galaxy-Galaxy-Galaxy Lensing at the Institute of Cosmology & Gravitation, part of the University of Portsmouth.

Research

Observations of distant supernovae reveal that the Universe is undergoing accelerated expansion , a phenomenon attributed to dark energy, which constitutes approximately 70% of the Universe’s energy density. The ΛCDM cosmological model, characterized by a cosmological constant ($\Lambda$) with an equation of state parameter $w=-1$, successfully explains this acceleration and is supported by extensive observational data. However, a significant tension arises between early-universe measurements of the Hubble constant ($H_{0}$) from cosmic microwave background data (e.g. by the Planck Collaboration) and direct late-time measurements from supernovae (e.g. from Reiss et al. 2022). This discrepancy, currently at the $\sim 5\sigma$ level, could indicate limitations in the ΛCDM model, necessitating deeper exploration of dark energy and cold dark matter (CDM).

SDSSJ0946+1006 gravitational lens

Cosmological probes, such as galaxy-galaxy strong gravitational lenses, have become powerful tools to investigate these phenomena. Measurements of $H_{0}$ and the dark energy equation of state parameter ($w$) leverage the relative sizes of Einstein rings formed by light deflections at varying redshifts. Strong lensing systems like J0946, which feature multiple source planes, are particularly valuable for constraining cosmological parameters. The interplay of deflections across these planes depends on the parameters $w$, the matter energy density ($\Omega _{m}$), and the curvature density ($\Omega _{k}$), influencing the relative geometry of the observed Einstein rings.

In a study by Ballard, a triple source plane lens model for J0946 was developed to constrain the Universe's expansion history up to a redshift of $z=5.975$. Earlier analyses of J0946 addressed tensions with CDM and applied double source plane models to probe $\Omega _{m}$ and $w$. The work by Ballard extended these methods by incorporating GPU-accelerated lens modelling and Hamiltonian Monte Carlo sampling to forward model the system. Preliminary results suggested enhanced constraints on cosmological parameters using this triple source framework, highlighting the importance of systematic tests on mass profile assumptions and the evolving dark energy models suggested by recent studies (e.g. from the DESI Collaboration ).

Related lists

1. List of cosmologists
2. List of astrophysicists

See also

1. General relativity