RUI: Implications of Non-Minimal Dark Sectors

压倒性的证据表明，我们宇宙中的大多数物质都是由一种神秘的物质组成的，这种物质既不发射也不吸收光线，但通过对正常物质的引力来感受到它的存在。这种“暗物质”的性质和起源仍然让我们摸不着头脑；此外，最近的实验结果已经开始质疑许多关于这种暗物质可能是什么的经典观点。这项由该奖项支持的研究旨在从两个方面解决这个“暗物质问题”。第一个涉及开发可行的、可测试的替代方案，以确定暗物质可能是什么。第二个涉及提出新的实验方法来探测暗物质的性质，并评估(通常通过计算机模拟)这些方法可能揭示的关于暗物质性质的潜在信息。该奖项的很大一部分将支持本科生参与这一研究课题，从而培养下一代科学家的兴趣并磨练他们的计算技能。该奖项支持的研究的目的是研究非传统和非最小暗物质情景的理论和现象学，以努力更好地了解暗部门的各种可行可能性。这项研究计划有两个方面。第一个是找出传统暗物质图景的可行替代方案，这些方案与目前的实验和观测限制一致。第二个是研究这种替代暗物质模型的现象学和宇宙学后果，着眼于实验或观测特征，这些特征可能有助于将这种替代暗物质模型与传统的对应模型区分开来。一种有希望的策略是在对撞机、直接探测实验和暗物质的天体物理探测器上寻找非标准粒子运动学的证据。这项工作的很大一部分将集中在动力学暗物质(DDM)框架内的非最小暗物质场景上。在DDM框架内，暗物质候选是由潜在的大量单个粒子物种组成的集合，这些粒子物种的衰变宽度与整个集合中它们的宇宙学丰度保持平衡，从而满足所有现象学约束。

Overwhelming evidence suggests that the majority of the matter in our universe consists of a mysterious form of matter that neither emits nor absorbs light, but yet makes its presence felt via its gravitational pull on normal matter. The nature and origin of this "dark matter" continue to elude us; moreover, recent experimental results have begun to call into question a lot of the canonical ideas about what this dark matter might be. The research supported by this award aims to address this "dark-matter problem" on two fronts. The first involves the development of viable, testable alternative proposals as to what the dark matter might be. The second involves proposing novel experimental methods for probing the properties of the dark matter and assessing (typically through computer simulations) what these methods could potentially reveal about the properties of the dark matter. A significant portion of this award will support undergraduate involvement in this research topic, thereby cultivating interest among the next generation of scientists and honing their computational skills.The aim of the research supported by this award is to study the theory and phenomenology of non-traditional and non-minimal dark-matter scenarios in an effort to better understand the full range of viable possibilities for the dark sector. This research program has two facets. The first is to identify viable alternatives to the traditional picture of dark matter which are consistent with current experimental and observational constraints. The second is to investigate the phenomenological and cosmological consequences of such alternative dark-matter models with an eye toward experimental or observational signatures which could serve to distinguish such alternative dark-matter models from their traditional counterparts. One promising strategy is to look for evidence of non-standard particle kinematics at colliders, at direct-detection experiments, and at astrophysical probes of dark matter. A significant portion of this effort will be focused on non-minimal dark-matter scenarios within the Dynamical Dark Matter (DDM) framework. Within the DDM framework, the dark-matter candidate is an ensemble comprising a potentially vast number of individual particle species whose decay widths are balanced against their cosmological abundances across the ensemble in such a way that all phenomenological constraints are satisfied.