Sankarshana Srinivasan

About Me

I am originally from Bangalore, India and completed my PhD in cosmology at the University of Manchester, supervised by Prof. Richard Battye, where my research focused on detecting axion dark matter in the radio waveband and on model-agnostic cosmological simulations of modified gravity.

During my PhD, I also worked closely with Dr Daniel Thomas, Dr Jamie McDonald, Dr Francesco Pace, and Prof. Björn Garbrecht, all of whom played important roles in my development as a researcher.

Following this, I moved on to an Alexander von-Humboldt fellowship at LMU munich In Prof. Jochen Weller's group. My work gradually evolved toward nonlinear structure formation, cosmological simulations, and inference frameworks for next-generation surveys.

I am currently based in Prague as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Fellow at CEICO, where I am developing new nonlinear inference frameworks for cosmological tests of gravity in preparation for the Euclid and LSST surveys.

Research Program

My research focuses on one of the central questions in modern cosmology: does gravity behave exactly as predicted by General Relativity on the largest scales in the Universe? While Einstein’s theory works remarkably well in the Solar System and around compact objects, cosmology allows us to test gravity across billions of light years and over most of cosmic history.

I develop the theoretical and computational tools needed to make these tests possible using observations of large-scale structure — the distribution of galaxies, weak lensing, and the growth of cosmic structure. The goal is to connect fundamental physics to observations from Euclid, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), and future cosmological surveys, asking whether cosmic acceleration points to dark energy, new physics, or a breakdown of gravity itself.

A major part of this program is the Cosmological Gravity on All Scales series, a long-term project aimed at building a fully model-independent framework for testing gravity with cosmological data. This work began with the theory: developing a simple and physically consistent parameterisation of modified gravity that could be tested directly with observations rather than tied to a specific model.

From there, the project moved step by step through the full pipeline: the first dedicated N-body simulations for this class of models, validation of nonlinear predictions against simulations, large-scale structure forecasts using multiple cosmological probes, emulator development for nonlinear modelling, and most recently full MCMC inference pipelines combining large-scale structure and CMB lensing. The aim has been to go from fundamental theory all the way to realistic survey-ready analyses.

More broadly, I am interested in building robust nonlinear inference frameworks that allow precision cosmology to test fundamental physics in a realistic way. My long-term goal is to establish an independent research program focused on cosmological tests of gravity and the fundamental laws governing the Universe.

Scientific Leadership

I play active leadership roles within two of the world's largest cosmology collaborations, helping develop the theoretical and statistical tools required for next-generation tests of gravity and dark energy.

• Lead Author of the Euclid DR1 parameterised gravity analysis, developing the Collaboration's first constraints on phenomenological modified gravity using Euclid observations.
• Co-Lead of the Beyond-wCDM Topical Team within the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC), coordinating forecasting and analysis efforts beyond the standard cosmological model.
• Active member of the Euclid Collaboration and the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC), contributing to cosmological inference, modified gravity analyses, and survey methodology.

Publications

My publications focus on nonlinear cosmological inference, modified gravity, large-scale structure, and axion dark matter phenomenology.

Full publication list available via: NASA ADS and ORCID.

• Cosmological gravity on all scales V — Srinivasan, S.; Prabhu, S.; Lehman, K.; Krishnan V., Ajiv; Weller, J. (2026)
  MCMC forecasts combining large scale structure and CMB lensing for binned phenomenological modified gravity
  arXiv:2603.11895 — LSST Y10 × Simons Observatory 6×2pt forecast combining cosmic shear, photometric clustering, and CMB lensing.
• Cosmological gravity on all scales IV — Srinivasan, S.; Thomas, D. B.; Taylor, P. L. (2025)
  3×2pt Fisher forecasts for pixelised phenomenological modified gravity
  arXiv:2409.06569 — Fisher forecasts using the same binned modified gravity framework with ReACT-based nonlinear predictions.
• Cosmological gravity on all scales III — Srinivasan, S.; Thomas, D. B.; Battye, R. (2024)
  Non-linear matter power spectrum in phenomenological modified gravity
  arXiv:2306.17240 — Validation of the ReACT code against N-body simulations for binned modified gravity.
• Cosmological gravity on all scales II — Srinivasan, S.; Thomas, D. B.; Pace, F.; Battye, R. (2021)
  Model independent modified gravity N-body simulations
  arXiv:2103.05051 — First N-body simulations performed for this class of binned modified gravity models.
• Cosmological gravity on all scales I — Thomas, D. B. (2020)
  Simple equations, required conditions, and a framework for modified gravity
  arXiv:2004.13051 — Foundational theory paper introducing the binned modified gravity parameterisation and assumptions.
• Euclid Collaboration — Albuquerque, I. S.; Frusciante, N.; Sakr, Z.; Srinivasan, S. et al. (200+ co-authors)
  Constraining parameterised models of modifications of gravity with the spectroscopic and photometric primary probes
  arXiv:2506.03008 — Submitted to A&A. Euclid primary probe constraints on parameterised modified gravity models using spectroscopic and photometric analyses.
• Euclid Preparation — Euclid Collaboration (300+ authors)
  Review of forecast constraints on dark energy and modified gravity
  arXiv:2512.09748 — Submitted to A&A. Wide Euclid modified gravity and dark energy review; contributed to the parameterised modified gravity section.
• Axion dark matter phenomenology papers on radio signatures and neutron star conversion phenomenology are available via my NASA ADS publication list linked above.

Conferences & Talks

• April 2026 — LMU Physical Cosmology Seminar
  Invited 60-minute Colloquium Talk
• May 2025 — Dutch Cosmology Meeting, Utrecht, Netherlands
  Invited Speaker — 60-minute talk on testing gravity with future surveys
• April 2025 — OPINAS Ringberg Meeting, Germany
  Invited Speaker — 20-minute talk on testing gravity with large-scale structure
• April 2025 — Renoir Talk, CPPM Marseille
  Invited Speaker — 60-minute talk on testing gravity with large-scale structure, CMB lensing, and voids
• January 2025 — Rencontres Du Vietnam: Theory Meets Experiment
  Invited Speaker — 20-minute talk on testing gravity with data from large-scale structure
• October 2024 — LMU–Cambridge Workshop
  Presented 20-minute talk on Large-Scale Structure Forecasts for Pixelized Modified Gravity
• March 2024 — Moriond Cosmology, La Thuile, Italy
  Presented 15-minute talk on Model-Independent N-body Simulations of Modified Gravity
• January 2024 — Munich Dark Matter Meeting
  Invited Talk — Detecting axions around neutron stars with radio telescopes

Contact

Email:
Sankarshana.Sri@physik.uni-muenchen.de

Profiles:
ORCID
NASA ADS Publications
GitHub