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
I am interested in a wide range of topics in theoretical and data-driven cosmology, with a particular focus on how the phenomenon of gravitational lensing can be used to test the cosmological model and fundamental Physics.
Along with my collaborators, I am exploring ways to remove the effect of gravitational lensing due to the large-scale distribution of matter from the observed B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (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, we are developing methods to improve the precision and accuracy of CMB lensing measurements and its 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.
Most recently, I have become interested in the ways in which observational non-idealities impact our ability to measure the angular clustering of galaxies and their distortion due to lensing. These are key observables in cosmology that will become ever more relevant in the coming decade with the Vera Rubin Observatory and Euclid coming online.
Though I am a theorist, I like to work at the interface with data, and I am lucky to do this as member of the analysis working group of the Simons Observatory (SO). Recently, I also became a member of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). In tandem, these two experiments promise to provide deep insights into the workings of our Universe; in particular, I am hoping to contribute to some exciting measurements of the cross-correlation between the galaxy locations determined by DESI and the matter distribution as inferred from CMB lensing.
For more details on my work, please take a look at my papers.
About me
- 2021 - : Postdoctoral fellow, UC Berkeley & LBNL
- 2017 - 2021: PhD student, IoA & KICC, University of Cambridge
- 2016 - 2017: Part III Mathematics (MASt), University of Cambridge
- 2012 - 2016: BSc Applied Physics, Columbia University
I am from Galicia, and I have had the pleasure to live in other beautiful places such as British Columbia, New York, and Cambridge. 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.