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While we theorists do not perform experiments ourselves, we still need to pay close attention to what our experimental colleagues are up to. Observation is the ultimate test of any scientific theory. And we are in an exciting time of great potential experimental discovery!

• Cosmology Experiments
• Gravity Experiments
• Particle Physics Experiments

Cosmology

It is the golden age of observational cosmology: As Andre Linde has put it, "the universe is approximately 14 billion years old. A hundred years ago, we did not even know that it is expanding. A few decades from now we will have a detailed map of the observable part of the universe, and this map is not going to change much for the next billion years" — Forward to Physical Foundations of Modern Cosmology, V. Mukhanov, Cambridge (2005).

Here are some links to contemporary and recent cosmology/astrophysics experiments:

Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy (the Seeds of Galaxies)

• Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)
• Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE, historical)
• Boomerang
• Millimeter Anisotropy eXperiment IMaging Array (MAXIMA)
• Planck

Galaxy Redshift Surveys (Mapping the Contents of our Universe)

• Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey

Dark Energy (Driving the Accelerated Expansion of the Universe)

• Supernova Acceleration Probe (SNAP)
• High-Z Supernova Search

Astrophysics: High Energy Cosmic rays

• Pierre Auger Observatory

Gravity

Tests of the Equivalence Principle (i.e., General Relativity)

• EotWASH (Eötvös-type experiment)
• Gravity Probe B

Gravitational Waves

• Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO: terrestrial)
• Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA:satelite, future)

Particle Physics

Electroweak-Scale Collider Experminents (hunting the Higgs, Supersymmetry & Extra Dimensions)

• Large Hadron Collider (LHC, at CERN)
  • ATLAS
  • CMS
• CDF (Tevatron, at Fermilab)
• International Linear Collider (ILC, future)

CP Violation

• BaBar (at SLAC)

Neutrino Oscillations (evidence for neutrino mass from solar and atmospheric neutrinos)

• Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO)
• SuperKamiokande
• Links to other neutrino experiments
• More links

(My experimental colleagues at Penn are participating in most of the experiments just listed. See: High Energy Physics Experiments at Penn.)

Nuclear (Heavy ions, quark-gluon plasma)

• Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (at Brookhaven)
• ALICE (at CERN)