Exploring the Nature of Dark Matter with Early Rubin Observatory Data

来自Vera C. Rubin天文台遗留空间和时间调查（LSST）的数据可以帮助理解暗物质晕，暗物质晕是包含引力束缚物质的空间区域，很难被探测到。该项目将使用鲁宾天文台作为“暗物质望远镜”，利用引力透镜（光线经过大质量物体时发生弯曲）在宇宙时间的次星系尺度上研究这些晕，使研究人员能够识别质量如此之低以至于无法容纳可见恒星的暗物质晕。这将有助于我们理解暗物质粒子的基本特性。该项目还包括继续发展和支持一项本科生研究奖学金，以纪念休伯特·麦克·萨克斯顿博士，他是美国第四位获得物理学博士学位的非裔美国人。萨克森顿奖学金每年为多名学生提供有偿的物理研究机会。研究人员将使用两种观测技术，即强引力透镜异常和恒星流扰动，来研究低质量暗物质晕的丰度和性质。对于强透镜部分，研究人员将把鲁宾天文台的数据与射电调查和非常长的基线射电干涉测量相结合，以实现强透镜射电大声活动星系核的毫角秒级分辨率成像，以最大限度地提高对低质量暗物质晕的灵敏度。这些光晕为约束暗物质的微物理特性提供了独特的优势，因为它们的演化受复杂的重子物理的影响较小，而且因为许多非最小的暗物质特性在低质量光晕上留下了最明显的特征。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。

Data from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) can help to understand dark matter halos, regions of space that contain gravitationally bound matter that is very hard to detect. This project will use the Rubin Observatory as a "dark matter telescope" to study these halos at sub-galactic scales across cosmic time using gravitational lensing (the bending of light as it passes a massive object), allowing investigators to identify dark matter halos that have such low mass that they do not host visible stars. This will contribute to our understanding of the fundamental properties of dark matter particles. This project also involves the continued development and support of an undergraduate research fellowship honoring Dr. Hubert Mack Thaxton, the fourth African American to receive a PhD in physics in the United States. The Thaxton fellowship provides paid physics research opportunities to multiple students each year. The investigators will use two observational techniques, namely strong gravitational lensing anomalies and stellar stream perturbations, to study the abundance and properties of low-mass dark matter halos. For the strong lensing component, investigators will combine Rubin Observatory data with radio surveys and very long baseline radio interferometry to achieve milli-arcsecond scale resolution imaging of strongly lensed radio-loud active galactic nuclei to maximize sensitivity to low-mass dark matter halos. These halos offer unique advantages to constrain the microphysical properties of dark matter because their evolution is less affected by complicated baryonic physics and because many non-minimal dark matter properties leave the most conspicuous signatures on low-mass halos.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.