Searching for New Physics in the Lab and the Sky

该奖项为纽约大学的Ken货车蒂尔堡教授的研究活动提供资金。当前的一套物理定律--被封装在粒子物理学和宇宙学的标准模型中--为自然界中所有已知的现象提供了极其准确和精确的描述。然而，仍然存在一些难题。最明显的缺点是，暗物质的微观性质是未知的，尽管通过其引力影响有大量证据证明它的存在，但暗物质是一种惰性成分，构成了银河系和宇宙的大部分物质密度。 在他的研究中，货车蒂尔堡教授的目标是开发比以往任何时候都更小的暗物质结构的观测探测器，使用基于星光的引力偏转的方法，这些星光是由小而不可见的暗物质团块引起的。利用X射线卫星和地面暗物质实验，他还将致力于探测弱相互作用的低质量粒子，这是一种在恒星核心产生的暗物质候选者。 这一领域的研究通过寻求回答物理学中最基本的问题之一，即理解什么粒子构成暗物质，从而促进了国家利益。 教授货车蒂尔堡也将涉及研究生和博士后在他的研究，从而培养下一代的初级科学家在这个新兴的新领域在粒子物理学和天体物理学的交叉点。他还将访问当地高中，就粒子物理学和宇宙学进行公开讲座，并教育来自代表性不足群体的学生追求科学职业道路。在第一个研究途径中，货车教授蒂尔堡和他的小组将对公共天文数据集进行一系列时域、天体测量、弱引力透镜的分析，以寻找轻于1亿太阳质量的完全不发光的暗物质结构。特别是，他的目标是开发一个数据分析管道，从超致密暗物质结构以及天体物理致密残余物和黑洞中搜索盖亚时间序列数据中的瞬态天体测量偏转。他还试图分析天体自行和背景源的加速度的相关变化，这些变化是由更广泛的暗物质结构通过引力透镜引起的。这种小尺度结构的（非）探测将为暗物质的微观物理学提供至关重要的新约束，以及小尺度结构形成的原始种子。在第二个研究方向，货车蒂尔堡教授将研究一个最近引入的现象，称为“恒星盆地”，其中弱耦合粒子可以从整个恒星体积发射到束缚轨道上，其密度随着时间的推移而积累。这种效应对于任何粒子类型都是通用的，如果粒子的静止质量能量与恒星内部的温度相差不远，这种效应就很重要。货车蒂尔堡认为，与恒星盆地有关的现象-实验室中的直接探测和望远镜观测中的间接探测-将成为对质量范围从几电子伏到几百千电子伏的任何粒子的主要探测。本研究的目的是详细地研究这种现象学：计算所有的生产机制，执行可观测信号的计算，分析公开可用的数据，并解释模型参数空间方面的结果。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

This award funds the research activities of Professor Ken Van Tilburg at New York University. The current set of physical laws --- as encapsulated within the Standard Models of Particle Physics and Cosmology --- provide an exquisitely accurate and precise description of all known phenomena in nature. However, several puzzles still remain. The most tangible shortcoming is that the microscopic nature of dark matter, a mostly inert component comprising most of the matter density of the Galaxy and the Universe, is unknown, despite the troves of evidence for its existence through its gravitational influence. In his research, Professor Van Tilburg aims to develop observational probes of dark-matter structures smaller than ever detected before, using methods based on the gravitational deflection of starlight caused by small and otherwise invisible clumps of dark matter. Using X-ray satellites and terrestrial dark matter experiments, he will also aim to detect weakly-interacting low-mass particles, a motivated class of dark-matter candidates which are produced in the cores of stars. Research in this area advances the national interest by seeking to answer one of the most fundamental questions in physics, namely that of understanding what particle(s) comprise the dark matter. Professor Van Tilburg will also involve graduate students and a postdoc in his research, thereby training the next generation of junior scientists in this burgeoning new field at the intersection of particle physics and astrophysics. He will also visit local high schools to give public lectures about particle physics and cosmology and to educate students from underrepresented groups about pursuing scientific career paths. In a first research avenue, Professor Van Tilburg and his group will conduct a suite of analyses of time-domain, astrometric, weak gravitational lensing on public astronomical data sets, to search for entirely non-luminous dark matter structures lighter than 100 million solar masses. In particular, he aims to develop a data analysis pipeline to search for transient astrometric deflections in Gaia time-series data from ultra-compact dark-matter structures as well as from astrophysical compact remnants and black holes. He also seeks to analyze the correlated shifts in celestial proper motions and accelerations of background sources induced via gravitational lensing by more extended dark-matter structures. A (non-)detection of such small-scale structures would provide crucial new constraints on the microphysics of dark matter, as well as the primordial seeds of structure formation on small scales. In a second research avenue, Professor Van Tilburg will study a recently introduced phenomenon, dubbed "stellar basins", wherein weakly-coupled particles can be emitted from the entire stellar volume onto bound orbits whose density accumulates over time. This effect is generic for any particle type and important if the particle has a rest-mass energy not too far removed from the temperature in the stellar interior. Van Tilburg conjectures that phenomena associated with stellar basins --- direct detection in the laboratory and indirect detection in telescope observations --- will form the leading probes of any particle in the mass range from a few eV to hundreds of keV. The objective of this research avenue is to work out this phenomenology in detail: calculating all production mechanisms, performing computations for the observable signals, analyzing publicly available data, and interpreting the results in terms of the parameter space of the models.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.