Exploring the Nature of Dark Matter with Early Rubin Observatory Data

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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.