I am a cosmologist and BCCP postdoctoral fellow at the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics at UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Research

The ultimate goal of cosmology is to understand the evolution of the Universe and shine light on the fundamental laws of Physics. My work comes in at the interface of theory and observations and is geared towards extracting as much information as possible from the data: typically this means observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB, relic light from the Big Bang) or the shape and distribution of galaxies, which delineates the large-scale structure (LSS) of the Universe.

A focal point of my work is using the gravitational lensing of the CMB caused by the large-scale distribution of matter to test the cosmological model and fundamental Physics. One very active topic of research that I am involved in is the reconstruction and removal of lensing-induced contamination from the observed B-mode polarization of the CMB. This is a crucial step in the search for the very weak primordial B-mode signal that is thought to have been produced by gravitational waves generated during cosmic inflation, a tiny fraction of a second after the beginning of time.

In parallel to this, I am developing methods to improve the precision and accuracy of CMB lensing measurements and their cross-correlation with other tracers of the matter distribution such as galaxies. These probes allow for precise constraints on the mass of the neutrinos, dark energy and dark matter.

I am also pioneering new techniques to analyze the angular clustering of galaxies and the distortions of their shapes imprinted by gravitational lensing. This takes the form of more efficient and accurate algorithms that take advantage of state-of-the art computing (e.g. on GPUs), as well as an improved understanding of how observational non-idealities affect our measurements. These observables are among the most powerful cosmological probes, and will only grow in importance with the advent of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), the Vera Rubin Observatory and Euclid .

Though I am a theorist, I like to work at the interface with data and am lucky to do so as member of two international collaborations: the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and the Simons Observatory (SO), where I co-lead the delensing working group. In tandem, these two experiments promise to provide deep insights into the workings of our Universe.

For more details about my work, please take a look at my papers or my PhD thesis.

About me

I am from Galicia, and I have had the pleasure to live in other beautiful places such as British Columbia, New York, Cambridge and California. I enjoy all things outdoors, and I care deeply about social justice.

FAQ about my name: my first name is Antón, and I have two last names, Baleato and Lizancos, as is traditional in the Iberian peninsula and much of the world. Baleato comes from my father, and Lizancos from my mother. You will find that in my articles I use both, but please feel free to refer to me just by one (typically Anton Baleato).

Science outreach

Check out these Virtual Reality visualisations of CMB science I have put together.

I have given a number of public talks, some of which are online: Telescopes as Time Machines, Gravitational Lensing as a Window to the Invisible Universe, or a Q&A with schoolchildren on the origin of the Universe (in Galician). If you have any questions about cosmology, you would like to have me as a speaker, or want to suggest other ways of collaborating, please get in touch!

Contact

You can email me at a.baleatolizancos (at) berkeley (dot) edu; or come to my office in Campbell Hall 341, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.