Assistant Professor
Research interests:
My research lies at the intersection of cosmology, astroparticle physics and high-energy physics. I work to uncover what lies beyond our currently incomplete understanding of both particle physics and cosmology.
I particularly enjoy thinking about how physics at the smallest scales—where new, microscopic particles may interact with each other through yet undiscovered forces—can be discovered using the physics at the largest scales, which determine the structure and evolution of our Universe. My work combines aspects of both theoretical and computational physics, all applied to finding ways of uncovering new physics in current and future experimental data.
Please visit the BU cosmology group website for more information.
Selected publications:
- Hongwan Liu, Wenzer Qin, Gregory W. Ridgway and Tracy R. Slatyer, “Exotic Energy Injection in the Early Universe. II: CMB Spectral Distortions and Constraints on Light Dark Matter”, PRD 108, 043531 (2023), arXiv:2303.07370
- James S. Bolton, Andrea Caputo, Hongwan Liu and Matteo Viel, “Comparison of Low-Redshift Lyman-α Forest Observations to Hydrodynamical Simulations with Dark Photon Dark Matter”, PRL 129, 211102 (2022), arXiv:2206.13520
- Cara Giovanetti, Mariangela Lisanti, Hongwan Liu and Joshua T. Ruderman, “Joint Cosmic Microwave Background and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Constraints on Light Dark Sectors with Dark Radiation”, PRL 129, 021302 (2022), arXiv:2109.03246
- Andrea Caputo, Hongwan Liu, Siddharth Mishra-Sharma and Joshua T. Ruderman, “Dark Photon Oscillations in Our Inhomogeneous Universe”, PRL 125, 221303 (2020), arXiv:2002.05165
- Hongwan Liu, Nadav J. Outmezguine, Diego Redigolo and Tomer Volansky, “Reviving Millicharged Dark Matter for 21-cm Cosmology”, PRD 100, 123011 (2019), arXiv:1908.06986