Ramon Miquel

Ramon Miquel

Institut de Física d'Altes Energies

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics

Born in 1962 in Gelida (Barcelona). Graduated in physics in 1985 at Universitat de Barcelona (UB). PhD in experimental high-energy physics in 1989 at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Postdoctoral stay at CERN, Geneva (Switzerland) from 1991 to 1996, mostly working on the ALEPH experiment at the LEP accelerator. "Professor Titular" at UB, 1997-2000. Moved to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley (USA) as a Career Staff Scientist in 2001, where started a transition towards observational cosmology. Since 2006, ICREA Research Professor at Institut de Física d'Altes Energies (IFAE). Associate Director of IFAE from 2008 to 2014. Director since 2015. Working mostly on the "Dark Energy Survey" (DES), "Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument" (DESI), and IFAE-led "Physics of the Accelerating Universe" (PAU) projects. All of them try to shed light into the nature of the "dark energy" that is causing the current acceleration of the expansion of the Universe.


Research interests

I am an experimental particle physicist trying to understand the ultimate building blocks of the Universe and their interactions, through both experiments involving particle accelerators and astronomical observations. Recently, my work has been mostly devoted to planning instruments  and performing observations to try to unveil the nature of the so-called "dark-energy" component of the Universe, which accounts for about 70% of the matter-energy of the Universe, counters the attractive effect of gravity on all other forms of matter and energy, and drives the current accelerated expansion of the Universe.

Selected publications

- Abbott, TMC et al. 2020 (DES Collaboration), 'Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Cosmological constraints from cluster abundances and weak lensing', PRD 102, 023509.

- Gatti M et al. 2020 (DES Collaboration), 'Dark Energy Survey Year 3 results: cosmology with moments of weak lensing mass maps - validation on simulations', MNRAS 498, 4060

- Cabayol-Garcia, L et al. 2020 (PAU Collaboration), 'The PAU Survey: background light estimation with deep learning techniques', MNRAS 491, 5392

- Eriksen, M et al. 2020 (PAU Collaboration), 'The PAU Survey: photometric redshifts using transfer learning from simulations', MNRAS 497, 4565


Selected research activities

- Adviser of the PhD thesis "Weak lensing in DES Y3: redshift distributions, shape catalogue, and mass mapping", by Marco Gatti (UAB, 18/09/2020). Grade: Excellent cum laude.

- Spanish representative in the Management Committee of the "Dark Energy Survey" (DES) Collaboration.

- Chair of the DES Builders' Committee.

- Member of the DES Publication Board and the Advisory Board to the DES Director.

- Member of the Speakers Board of the "Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument" (DESI) Collaboration.