Department of Physics and Astronomy, Baylor University

09/11/2026

Highlights this week are graduate students at work in their labs, the kickoff of Physics Tutoring, and another insightful colloquium with the community featuring Dr. Fritz Gesztesy from Baylor's own math department!

09/05/2026

This week, the Department of Physics and Astronomy had the pleasure of celebrating the retirement of Dr. Hyde after 39 years of service. We also had the opportunity to welcome our new Baylor bears into the department during welcome week. We had our first colloquium featuring Dr.Alan Farhan and lab sessions are up and running this week, additionally, our very own Dr. Rose and his research team were at the launch of NASA’s Roman Space Telescope!

09/03/2026

🌪️ **Baylor astrophysicists Dr. Lorin Swint Matthews and Dr. Truell W. Hyde are among the partners on a $30 million NSF grant to establish a new research center focused on understanding and controlling turbulence.**

Congratulations to Dr. Matthews and Dr. Hyde on this exciting collaboration! 👏

🔗 Read more: https://news.web.baylor.edu/news/story/2026/baylor-astrophysicists-among-partners-30-million-nsf-grant-establish-turbulence

Baylor Astrophysicists Among Partners on $30 Million NSF grant to Establish Turbulence Research Center Led by Michigan State University, the NSF-funded consortium of eight research universities and five national labs will dramatically advance scientists’ ability to predict and control turbulence b...

09/01/2026

Our own Dr. Rose and his research team at the launch of NASA’s Roman Space Telescope!

Baylor University Baylor University College of Arts & Sciences Department of Physics and Astronomy, Baylor University

08/31/2026

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope has launched! 🚀 A big milestone for Dr. Rose and his research group. 🌌

Baylor Astrophysicist Helps Prepare NASA’s Roman Space Telescope for Launch Benjamin Rose, Ph.D., will help NASA process unprecedented amounts of data as Roman searches for clues about dark energy, black holes and the evolution of the universe by Kelly Craine, Media & Public Relations August 28, 2...

08/03/2026

At Baylor, research and teaching go hand in hand — and so do they in Physics!

It’s no surprise that Baylor faculty are leaders in their fields. From prestigious national fellowships to coveted grants, Baylor professors are highly decorated for their research and scholarship. One thing that makes Baylor different: Those same researchers can also regularly be found in the cla...

08/03/2026

Meet Our Expert: Dr. Barbara Castanheira Endl and the Stories Hidden in White Dwarf Stars.

07/30/2026

How Did Our Remarkably Smooth Universe Emerge from the Quantum Universe?

Baylor researcher Anzhong Wang and collaborators identify a new quantum-gravitational mechanism through which a highly anisotropic early universe naturally evolves into the remarkably smooth cosmos we observe today.

Our universe is remarkably homogeneous and isotropic on the largest scales. Yet many cosmological models predict that the early universe should have been highly anisotropic, making the emergence of today's orderly cosmos one of the central questions in modern cosmology.

Published in Physical Review Letters, the research reports a new prediction from modified loop quantum cosmology (mLQC-I). It identifies a quantum-gravitational mechanism that naturally suppresses primordial anisotropies immediately after a quantum bounce—the event that replaces the classical Big Bang singularity. As a result, even a highly anisotropic early universe rapidly evolves into the remarkably smooth, expanding universe observed today, without requiring exotic matter or fine tuning.

The prediction distinguishes mLQC-I from other bouncing cosmological models and provides new theoretical insight into one of cosmology's longest-standing questions: How did the universe evolve from its earliest quantum state into the large-scale cosmos we observe today? The work also opens new directions for exploring potential observational signatures in the cosmic microwave background and primordial gravitational waves.

The research was recently featured by Phys.org, highlighting its significance for understanding the origin and evolution of our universe.

Learn More
Physical Review Letters
Quantum Damping of Cosmological Shear: A New Prediction from Loop Quantum Cosmologies
DOI: 10.1103/f8tr-bq61

Read the article:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/f8tr-bq61

Phys.org Feature
Quantum-gravitational mechanism could explain the universe's homogeneity

Read the article:
https://phys.org/news/2026-07-quantum-gravitational-mechanism-universe-homogeneity.html

06/28/2026

Baylor Physics and Astronomy graduates 2026!

05/13/2026

I’m logging off! I’ve loved my time with the department so much and getting to know you all. I’m so grateful for this experience and can’t wait to see all the amazing things ahead for everyone 🤍