Peera Simakachorn
Peera Simakachorn is from Nakhon Ratchasima, also known as Korat, in Thailand. He graduated from the Mathematical Physics Master at Universität Hamburg in August 2019 with a thesis on "Probing Particle Theories with Gravitational Waves". His Master thesis focused on extracting information about the history of our universe by utilizing gravitational waves from primordial sources.
What is the topic of your research?
I work in the Particle-Cosmology group led by Prof. Dr. Géraldine Servant on the topic "Sensitivity of future gravitational wave observatories to cosmological history". Since a gravitational wave propagates freely after its production, it can carry direct information about the early stages of our universe before the Big Bang nucleosynthesis, the most ancient era we can currently probe. We focus on gravitational waves from primordial origins – for example first-order phase transition, topological defects, and the primordial inflation – which mostly tie to particle physics at high energy scales. By observing their corresponding gravitational wave signals, both cosmology and particle physics of the early universe can be tested with the currently operating experiments, like LIGO and pulsar timing arrays, and the future planned observatories, like LISA and Einstein Telescope.
What fascinates you about your research focus?
Gravitational waves can help us understand the history of our universe through the interplay between particle physics and cosmology and at a scale that no probe has gone before. Many currently and upcoming gravitational wave experiments within this century will conjoin and operate in a broad frequency range which is sensitive to gravitational waves from very ancient times. Interestingly, this is as if we are doing the "cosmic archeology"!
What do you like about Quantum Universe?
The Quantum Universe cluster provides good opportunities for early career scientists, like me, to build up and to expand scientific knowledge and connections both within and outside the fields of interest. Especially, events like Quantum Universe Days encourage us to communicate our current work and ideas among people of closely related fields and also to glance at a possibility for bridging gaps to other interesting areas.
What do you like to do in your free time?
As we can only gaze at stars in the night sky, the dark times from COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated new hobbies which I never considered before. I have developed my interest in cooking and improved my skills and recipes a lot, mostly Thai, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean menus. I also enjoy reading fictions, especially the beautiful word flows from Murakami.