Origin and Probes of Baryonic and Dark Matter

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The PI proposes to explore how one might detect dark matter through its faint luminous manifestations using various astronomical tools. When dark matter particles pair-annihilate, or if they decay, photons and other radiating particles are produced and can be detected with gamma-ray, X-ray, optical and radio telescopes. The PI will also study how the microscopic particle features of dark matter effect the evolution of structure in the Universe,. and show how this might solve some open questions in cosmology and astrophysics. The issue of the generation of baryonic matter (baryogenesis) will be analyzed in its relationship with particle physics setups beyond the Standard Model, such as Supersymmetry. Imprints of the baryogenesis mechanism can emerge in a wide variety of fields that will be explored in the proposed research, such as searches for new particles with colliders, gravitational waves from the Early Universe and exotic properties of elementary particles. The PI will participate in SCIPP and UCSC Physics outreach programs at UCSC which concentrates on pre-college students and their teachers which includes a large component of under-represented groups from the southern and inland parts of Santa Cruz County. This latter activity is partially supported by QuarkNet, GLAST and EPO.