Seeing in the Dark

在黑暗中看见

• 批准号: 1620806
• 负责人: Lisa Randall
• 金额: $ 60万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-15 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1620806&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Seeing; Dark

This award funds the research activities of Professor Lisa Randall at Harvard University. Professor Randall's research explores fundamental physics at the smallest scales probed thus far as well as the nature of the as-yet unidentified dark matter. Understanding the nature of dark matter and its distribution in the Milky Way is essential for experimental and observational probes. Professor Randall's research will contribute significantly to this effort, opening up avenues for dark-matter research that have not yet been explored. This research program is also highly interdisciplinary, drawing from particle physics, cosmology, and astronomy, with additional potential connections to geology, paleontology, and chemistry. As such, this research contributes to the national interest by furthering the development of fundamental scientific knowledge within the United States. This research is also envisioned to have significant broader impacts. It will not only involve students and postdocs, thereby helping them develop a broad skill set, but also serves as a rich backdrop for introducing scientific ideas --- particularly those in particle physics --- to the general public. The PI's presence in the public sphere also encourages women and other under-represented groups to pursue science, while the PI's recent book "Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe" has provided an ideal platform for bringing science to the general public and has led to numerous media appearances. These activities are expected to continue under the current award.More technically, in spite of tremendous progress in particle physics over the last decade, many important questions remain unanswered, including the origin of the electroweak scale and the nature of dark matter. For example, we still do not know what dark matter is, or how its share of the cosmic energy density can be understood. The PI will investigate these questions within the framework of "Partially Interacting Dark Matter", and within one particular realization known as "Double Disk Dark Matter", where a small fraction of dark matter particles have interesting interactions beyond the gravitational. This feature can give rise to new testable signatures that can potentially affect structure formation. Another generic possibility is "Flooded Dark Matter", which provides a natural way to dilute the entropy in the dark sectors. This mechanism expands the model-building possibilities for dark-matter physics. Finally, Professor Randall plans to investigate new mechanisms for understanding the origin of the weak scale and will study their experimental implications.

该奖项用于资助哈佛大学教授丽莎·兰德尔的研究活动。兰德尔教授的研究探索了到目前为止探索的最小尺度的基础物理学，以及尚未确定的暗物质的性质。了解暗物质的性质及其在银河系中的分布对于实验和观测探测器至关重要。兰德尔教授的研究将对这一努力做出重大贡献，为尚未探索的暗物质研究开辟道路。这项研究计划也是高度跨学科的，借鉴了粒子物理学、宇宙学和天文学，并增加了与地质学、古生物学和化学的潜在联系。因此，这项研究通过促进美国国内基础科学知识的发展，为国家利益做出了贡献。这项研究预计也将产生重大的更广泛的影响。它不仅将涉及学生和博士后，从而帮助他们发展广泛的技能集，而且还将作为一个丰富的背景，向公众介绍科学思想-特别是粒子物理中的那些思想。国际和平协会在公共领域的存在也鼓励妇女和其他代表性不足的群体追求科学，而国际和平协会最近出版的书《暗物质与恐龙：宇宙惊人的相互关联性》为将科学带给普通公众提供了一个理想的平台，并导致了许多媒体的露面。预计这些活动将在目前的奖项下继续下去。更严格地说，尽管粒子物理学在过去十年中取得了巨大进步，但许多重要问题仍未得到解答，包括弱电标度的起源和暗物质的性质。例如，我们仍然不知道暗物质是什么，也不知道它在宇宙能量密度中所占的份额如何被理解。PI将在“部分相互作用的暗物质”的框架内，以及在一种被称为“双盘暗物质”的特殊实现中研究这些问题，在这种实现中，一小部分暗物质粒子在引力之外具有有趣的相互作用。这一特征可以产生新的可测试的签名，这可能会影响结构的形成。另一种普遍的可能性是“淹没的暗物质”，它提供了一种自然的方法来稀释暗扇区中的熵。这一机制扩展了暗物质物理建模的可能性。最后，兰德尔教授计划研究理解弱尺度起源的新机制，并将研究它们的实验意义。