Constraining power of the SPHEREx mission on different models of inflation compared to the model space that is still allowed from the current leading analysis based on the Planck satellite mission.
SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) is a selected NASA explorer mission that will observe the entire sky with near-spectroscopic resolution. By measuring a unique signal in the clustering of galaxies on large scales, SPHEREx will be able to constrain whether the initial density field that seeds our Universe has signatures of non-Gaussianity. These signatures allow us to constrain different physics scenarios of "inflation" (see Fig to the right), a rapid expansion phase in the early Universe.
The mission is led by Caltech/JPL (SPHEREx mission website), our lab is building the modeling and inference code for the galaxy power spectrum analysis. We are also working on quantifying synergies of SPHEREx and other cosmological missions (in particular LSST) with the goal to constrain Dark Energy.