Zeeshan Ahmed

About

Zeeshan Ahmed is an Associate Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics at Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He is an observational cosmologist and experimental physicist specializing in building ultra-low-noise detectors using superconducting and quantum sensing techniques, which are employed in experiments and instrumentation for cosmology. His research primarily investigates the inflation paradigm of standard cosmology through the study of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Recently, he has become interested in utilizing the weak lensing of the CMB in conjunction with galaxy surveys to analyze the growth of large-scale structures in the universe. Zeeshan Ahmed received his PhD in particle astrophysics from Caltech in 2012, focusing on the direct detection of WIMP dark matter with the CDMS-II experiment. He then shifted his research efforts to searching for inflation signals with the CMB. After serving as a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford until 2015, he was appointed as a Wolfgang Panofsky Fellow at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. In 2017, he was awarded a DOE Office of Science Early Career Award to develop new signal transduction and superconducting multiplexing techniques for next-generation CMB cameras. He was appointed as a Lead Scientist at SLAC in 2020 and became an Associate Professor at Stanford and SLAC in 2023. Additionally, he serves as the CMB department head in the Fundamental Physics Directorate at SLAC and manages…

Research topics

• Optics
• Physics
• Astronomy
• Astrophysics
• Computer Science
• Acoustics
• Mathematics
• Telecommunications
• Geology
• Remote sensing

Selected publications

• Measurements of the <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>E</mml:mi></mml:math>-mode polarization and temperature-<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>E</mml:mi></mml:math>-mode correlation of the CMB from SPT-3G 2018 data

  Physical review. D/Physical review. D. · 2021 · 259 citations

  We present measurements of the $E$-mode ($EE$) polarization power spectrum and temperature-$E$-mode ($TE$) cross-power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background using data collected by SPT-3G, the latest instrument installed on the South Pole Telescope. This analysis uses observations of a $1500\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{deg}}^{2}$ region at 95, 150, and 220 GHz taken over a four-month period in 2018. We report binned values of the $EE$ and $TE$ power spectra over the angular multipole range $30…

  DOI

• CMB-S4: Forecasting Constraints on Primordial Gravitational Waves

  The Astrophysical Journal · 2022 · 256 citations

  Abstract CMB-S4—the next-generation ground-based cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiment—is set to significantly advance the sensitivity of CMB measurements and enhance our understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe. Among the science cases pursued with CMB-S4, the quest for detecting primordial gravitational waves is a central driver of the experimental design. This work details the development of a forecasting framework that includes a power-spectrum-based semianalytic proj…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Receiver development for BICEP Array, a next-generation CMB polarimeter at the South Pole

  2020 · 51 citations

  A detection of curl-type (B-mode) polarization of the primary CMB would be direct evidence for the inflationary paradigm of the origin of the Universe. The Bicep/Keck Array (BK) program targets the degree angular scales, where the power from primordial B-mode polarization is expected to peak, with ever-increasing sensitivity and has published the most stringent constraints on inflation to date. Bicep Array (BA) is the Stage-3 instrument of the BK program and will comprise four Bicep3-class recei…

  DOI

• The Simons Observatory: science goals and forecasts for the enhanced Large Aperture Telescope

  Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics · 2025-08-01 · 49 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract We describe updated scientific goals for the wide-field, millimeter-wave survey that will be produced by the Simons Observatory (SO). Significant upgrades to the 6-meter SO Large Aperture Telescope (LAT) are expected to be complete by 2028, and will include a doubled mapping speed with 30,000 new detectors and an automated data reduction pipeline. In addition, a new photovoltaic array will supply most of the observatory's power. The LAT survey will cover about 60% of the sky at a regula…

  PublisherDOI

• BICEP/<i>Keck</i> XVIII: Measurement of BICEP3 polarization angles and consequences for constraining cosmic birefringence and inflation

  Physical review. D/Physical review. D. · 2025-03-03 · 7 citations

  article

  We use a custom-made calibrator to measure individual detectors' polarization angles of BICEP3, a small aperture telescope observing the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at 95 GHz from the South Pole. We describe our calibration strategy and the statistical and systematic uncertainties associated with the measurement. We reach an unprecedented precision for such measurement on a CMB experiment, with a repeatability for each detector pair of 0.02\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}. We show that…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• K. D. Irwin

  529 shared

• A. Cukierman

  Menlo School

  334 shared

• C. L. Kuo

  294 shared

• K. W. Yoon

  Stanford University

  289 shared

• K. L. Thompson

  Stanford University

  270 shared

• W. L. K. Wu

  238 shared

• R. W. Ogburn

  SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

  203 shared

• B. A. Benson

  Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy

  203 shared

Labs

• Zeeshan Ahmed's LabPI

Awards & honors

• Wolfgang Panofsky Fellow at SLAC National Accelerator Labora…
• DOE Office of Science Early Career Award (2017)

Similar researchers at Stanford University

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• Melissa Bondyh-96
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