Ludovic Van Waerbeke
Associate Professor and CIfAR scholar
 
Ludovic
 
University of British Columbia
Department of Physics and Astronomy
6224, Agricultural road
Vancouver, B.C., V6T 1Z1, Canada

Phone: +1 604 822 5515 (office)
Fax: +1 604 822 5324
Email : waerbeke at phas.ubc.ca
 
 
 
Ludovic Van Waerbeke is an Associate Professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of British Columbia and Scholar of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research in the Cosmology and Gravity Program.

Research Interests:

My past and current research interests are concerned primarily with the study of dark matter in the Universe and related topics in cosmology and fundamental physics. Dark matter constitutes 70% of the mass in the Universe, but it is suspected that it does not interact with "normal" matter and it does not emit any radiation. Its physical nature is unknown, but it is massive, therefore it interacts gravitationally with the rest of the Universe, leading to the so-called gravitational lensing effect. Lot of my research concentrates on the use of gravitational lensing to map the dark matter and try to understand its nature. Ultimately, a better understanding of dark matter is a key for a better understanding of the Universe, structures, galaxy clusters and galaxy formation, particle physics and possibly leading to tighter constraints on theories of gravity.

Picture of the galaxy cluster CL0024 (yellow galaxies) showing an impressive gravitational lensing effect on a distant spiral galaxy (blue). Several lensed images of the same background blue galaxy are visible.