Dark matter: from the early Universe to the Milky Way

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

There are various well-motivated dark matter candidates, including WIMPs, axions and Primordial Black Holes (PBHs). PBHs are black holes formed in the early Universe, for instance from the collapse of large density perturbations generated during inflation. To detect dark matter, we need to understand how it is distributed, which depends on the formation and evolution of the first dark matter structures. The discovery of gravitational waves from mergers of ~10 Solar mass black hole binaries has led to increased interest in PBHs as a dark matter candidate. There are various constraints on the abundance of PBHs, for instance from gravitational lensing and their dynamical effects. To date the calculations of these constraints have made various simplifying assumptions. For instance, that the PBHs are smoothly distributed, like particle dark matter. This project will examine how more realistic modelling of the PBH population affects these constraints, starting with the effects of PBH clustering on stellar microlensing constraints.