Searching for New Physics in the Lab and the Sky

在实验室和天空中寻找新物理

• 批准号: 2210551
• 负责人: Ken Van Tilburg
• 金额: $ 22.5万
• 依托单位: New York University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-01 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2210551&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Searching; New; Physics; Lab; Sky

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.

该奖项资助纽约大学Ken Van Tilburg教授的研究活动。当前的一套物理定律-被封装在粒子物理和宇宙学的标准模型中-提供了对自然界中所有已知现象的精确和精确的描述。然而，还有几个谜题仍然存在。最明显的缺点是暗物质的微观性质是未知的，尽管有大量证据表明暗物质是通过引力影响存在的，但暗物质是一种基本惰性的成分，构成了银河系和宇宙的大部分物质密度。在他的研究中，范·蒂尔伯格教授的目标是开发对暗物质结构的观测探测器，这些结构比以前探测到的更小，使用的方法是基于暗物质小团块或看不见的暗物质团块引起的星光引力偏转的方法。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，这是在恒星核心产生的一类受激励的候选暗物质。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来推进国家利益，即了解粒子(S)组成暗物质的问题。范蒂尔伯格教授还将让研究生和博士后参与他的研究，从而在这个粒子物理和天体物理交叉的新兴领域培养下一代初级科学家。他还将访问当地的高中，发表关于粒子物理和宇宙学的公开演讲，并教育来自代表性不足群体的学生如何追求科学职业道路。在第一个研究途径中，范·蒂尔伯格教授和他的团队将对公开的天文数据集进行一系列时间域、天体测量学和弱引力透镜分析，以寻找比1亿太阳质量轻的完全不发光的暗物质结构。特别是，他的目标是开发一条数据分析管道，从超致密暗物质结构以及天体物理致密残骸和黑洞的GAIA时间序列数据中搜索瞬时天文测量偏转。他还试图分析由更广泛的暗物质结构引起的引力透镜引起的天体自身运动和背景源加速的相关变化。对这种小尺度结构的(非)探测将为暗物质的微观物理以及小尺度结构形成的原始种子提供至关重要的新约束。在第二个研究途径中，范蒂尔伯格教授将研究最近引入的一种现象，被称为“恒星盆地”，在这种现象中，弱耦合粒子可以从整个恒星体积发射到束缚轨道上，这些轨道的密度会随着时间的推移而积累。这种效应对任何类型的粒子都是通用的，如果粒子的静止质量能量与恒星内部的温度相差不太远，那么这种效应就很重要。范蒂尔伯格推测，与恒星盆地相关的现象-实验室中的直接探测和望远镜观测中的间接探测-将形成对质量范围从几eV到数百keV的任何粒子的领先探测器。这一研究途径的目标是详细地解决这一现象学：计算所有生产机制，对可观测信号执行计算，分析公开可用的数据，并根据模型的参数空间解释结果。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

New approaches to dark matter detection

暗物质探测的新方法

• DOI: 10.1038/s42254-022-00509-4
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Nature Reviews Physics
• 影响因子: 38.5
• 作者: Hochberg, Yonit;Kahn, Yonatan F.;Leane, Rebecca K.;Rajendran, Surjeet;Van Tilburg, Ken;Yu, Tien-Tien;Zurek, Kathryn M.
• 通讯作者: Zurek, Kathryn M.