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.

该奖项为纽约大学的Ken Van Tilburg教授提供了研究活动。当前的物理定律集 - 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准确和精确的描述。但是，仍然存在一些难题。最明显的缺点是，尽管存在大多数物质密度，但它们是银河系和宇宙的大多数惰性成分的微观性质，尽管有大量证据通过其重力影响证明了其存在的证据。 范·蒂尔堡（Van Tilburg）教授在他的研究中旨在开发比以往任何时候都比以往更小的黑暗结构的观察探针，该方法是基于基于由暗物质的小且其他看不见的团块引起的星光的重力偏转的方法。使用X射线卫星和地面暗物质实验，他还将旨在检测弱相互作用的低质量颗粒，这是一类动机的黑暗物体候选者，它们是在恒星核心中产生的。 该领域的研究通过寻求回答物理学中最基本的问题之一，即了解粒子构成暗物质的最基本问题，从而提高了国家利益。 范·蒂伯格（Van Tilburg）教授还将参与研究生和博士后研究，从而在粒子物理学和天体物理学交集的新领域中培训下一代初级科学家。他还将访问当地的高中，以进行有关粒子物理和宇宙学的公开演讲，并向代表性不足的团体的学生教育有关追求科学职业道路的学生。在第一座研究大道上，范·蒂伯格（Van Tilburg）教授及其小组将对公共天文数据集的时域，天体，弱重力透镜进行一系列分析，以寻找完全无稀的暗物质结构，大于1亿个单位质量。特别是，他旨在开发数据分析管道，以从超紧凑的深色 - 黑暗结构以及天体物理紧凑型残余物和黑洞中搜索Gaia时间序列数据中的瞬态星体偏转。他还试图分析天体适当运动的相关转移以及通过重力透镜引起的背景源的加速度，这是通过更延伸的深色 - 物质结构引起的。 （非）检测此类小规模结构将对暗物质的微物理学以及在小尺度上形成的结构形成的原始种子提供至关重要的新约束。在第二个研究大道上，范·蒂尔堡（Van Tilburg）教授将研究一种被称为“恒星盆地”的现象，其中弱耦合的颗粒可以从整个恒星体积中排放到其密度随时间累积的结合轨道上。这种效果对于任何粒子类型都是通用的，如果粒子的静息能与恒星内部的温度相距不远，则重要。范·蒂尔堡（Van Tilburg）猜想与恒星盆地相关的现象---在实验室中的直接检测和望远镜观察中的间接检测 - 将形成质量范围从几个ev到数百个kev的任何粒子的主要探针。该研究途径的目的是详细介绍这种现象学：计算所有生产机制，为可观察的信号执行计算，分析公开可用的数据并根据模型的参数空间来解释结果。该奖项反映了NSF的法规任务，并通过评估智力效果和广泛的范围来反映出值得评估的支持。

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.