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Overview of the IGC

Please click here for a list of our Ph.D. Theses

The Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos (IGC) is a research community seeking to collectively push out the boundaries of understanding of the fundamental forces of nature and how they shape the evolution of the universe.

Cosmological data reveals forms of matter and energy that are not yet understood. The theory of the fundamental forces, including gravity, must be pushed into new regimes and perhaps fundamentally restructured in order to elegantly explain the origin and evolution of the universe. Astrophysical surveys continue to discover objects with complex dynamics at energy scales completely out of reach in terrestrial experiments; understanding both the origin and the precise physical processes at work in these powerful engines will provide new insights into extreme states of familiar matter. Gravitational wave detections, a brand-new probe of the universe, allow the first direct observations of gravity at work in compact-object mergers. Alone, and with correlated signals from across the electromagnetic spectrum and in the emission of high-energy particles, those observations have enormous science potential.

Meeting the challenges contained in this data requires a joint effort between many converging areas of expertise and an enthusiasm for new ideas and new perspectives. The IGC strives to provide a fertile environment for collaboration between the domains of particle physics, gravitational physics, mathematics, cosmology, astrophysics, statistics, and computation.


Organizational Structure

Advisory Board
IGC Executive Committee
Staff
  • Courtney Shaffer (cls6664@psu.edu), Administrative support

History of the IGC

The Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos was founded in 2007, building on the strengths of Penn State’s Center for Gravitational Physics and Geometry (1993-2007, Abhay Ashtekar) and the NSF Physics Frontier Center for Gravitational Waves (2001-2008, Sam Finn, Pablo Laguna, Peter Mészáros). The IGC built on these strong foundations by partnering with Penn State's multimessenger astrophysicists and cosmologists. Abhay Ashtekar founded the Institute and served as its Director until 2021.


About our wordmark
Monica The IGC wordmark was created by Monica Rincon Ramirez, while she was a graduate student at the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos (IGC). Monica enjoys drawing new connections between fundamental theory and observations. Her graduate work includes specialized topics in general relativity, loop quantum gravity, and quantum fields in cosmological backgrounds. In particular, her thesis work focused on finding effective quantum corrections to gravitational phenomena from spinfoams, and applications to cosmology. She received her PhD in 2024.

The wordmark symbolizes the scope and variety of research at the IGC. The base of the image represents quantum gravity, evoking the quantum geometrical picture from spinfoams and loop quantum gravity. These are among the approaches to fundamental questions studied at the Center for Fundamental Theory. The middle of the image represents the Center for Theoretical and Observational Cosmology by galaxies embedded in a smooth surface, characteristic of spacetime in general relativity and the much larger physical scales studied in cosmology. Finally, at the top, the surface curves to an extreme, representing a supermassive black hole accompanied by an energetic jet. These elements depict an active galactic nucleus, inspired by Centaurus A. Just to the right, a pair of black holes approaches merger. This top portion of the wordmark represents the Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics, which specializes in the study of high-energy phenomena in the universe.