RUI: New Directions in Dark Matter and Cosmology

粒子物理学和天文学的最新进展，包括引力波的发现，为我们所居住的宇宙及其所含物质提供了大量新的观测数据。这项资助的研究重点是开发新的方法，从这些数据中提取有关我们宇宙历史的信息，并应用这些结果来解决一些基本的未解决的问题，比如我们宇宙中物质的空间分布是如何形成的，以及为什么我们的宇宙包含的物质比反物质多得多。这项研究的一个特别目的是更好地了解我们宇宙中“暗物质”的起源和性质——一种迄今为止神秘的物质形式，它既不发射也不吸收光，但通过对正常可见物质的引力作用，人们可以感受到它的存在。该奖项的很大一部分将支持本科生参与这些研究课题，从而培养下一代科学家的兴趣并磨练他们的计算技能。该奖项支持的研究项目围绕两个主要主题组织。其中一个主题是研究揭示宇宙黑暗部分信息的新方法，并区分不同的暗物质场景。涉及非最小黑区的场景是特别有趣的，因为在这种场景中暗物质的特征实验特征通常与最小黑区相关的典型特征在质量上不同，并且研究得不太彻底。另一个主题是研究如何偏离早期宇宙宇宙学的最小图景——例如，偏离涉及额外的宇宙相变，额外的不稳定自由度，或与宇宙膨胀或再加热相关的额外动力学——可以通过观测来探测或约束。这个研究主题包括确定新的方法，其中观测数据-例如，有关物质功率谱或宇宙微波背景的特性-可以用来揭示早期宇宙动力学的信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Recent advances in particle physics and astronomy, including the discovery of gravitational waves, have provided a trove of new observational data about the universe we inhabit and the matter it contains. The research supported by this grant focuses on developing novel methods of extracting information about the history of our universe from this data and applying these results in order to address fundamental unanswered questions such as how the spatial distribution of matter within our universe came to be the way it is and why our universe contains so much more matter than antimatter. One particular aim of this research is to better understand the origin and properties of the "dark matter" in our universe - an as-yet mysterious form of matter that neither emits nor absorbs light, but nevertheless makes its presence felt via its gravitational pull on normal, visible matter. A significant portion of this award will support undergraduate involvement in these research topics, thereby cultivating interest among the next generation of scientists and honing their computational skills.The program of research supported by this award is organized around two main themes. One of these themes is to investigate novel methods for uncovering information about the dark sector of our universe and distinguishing between different dark-matter scenarios. Scenarios involving non-minimal dark-sectors are of particular interest, since the characteristic experimental signatures of dark matter in such scenarios are often qualitatively different from those typically associated with minimal dark sectors, and less thoroughly studied. The other theme is to investigate how departures from the minimal picture of early-universe cosmology - departures involving, for example, additional cosmological phase transitions, additional unstable degrees of freedom, or additional dynamics related to cosmic inflation or reheating - can be probed or constrained by observation. This research theme involves identifying novel ways in which observational data - concerning, for example, the matter power spectrum or the properties of the cosmic microwave background - can be used to reveal information about early-universe dynamics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.