Testing cosmic tensions with new measurements of CMB lensing and galaxy surveys

Abstract: Despite the remarkable success of the LCDM cosmological model, tensions have been reported between different low and high redshift measurements of the Hubble constant and (less significantly) the amplitude of density fluctuations (sigma_8). Although systematic errors are a likely explanation, the most exciting possibility is that these tensions are first signs of new physics. In the first part of my talk, I will discuss new measurements of gravitational lensing in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. These new CMB lensing measurements allow the projected dark matter distribution to be mapped out to high redshifts and will soon provide some of the most powerful probes of the amplitude of density fluctuations and of neutrino masses. In the second part of my talk, I will discuss new measurements of the Hubble constant from large scale structure without the use of information from the sound horizon scale; I will argue that such measurements have the potential to be a promising test for many new physics models that have been proposed to solve the Hubble constant tension.