This award supports research focused on understanding and developing the theory of cosmological models containing dark matter arising as the relic of decays of other particles present in the very early universe. The theoretical framework will be developed in order to test models with dark matter from such early decays, and to critically assess how well the cold dark matter paradigm may be tested through gravitational lensing and cosmic microwave background observations. About 30% of the energy density in the universe is in the form of non-relativistic dark matter. Super-symmetry (and other theories of physics beyond the standard model) naturally predict the existence of dark matter. Two generic possibilities are cold dark matter (e.g., neutralino) and dark matter from early decays (e.g., weak-scale mass gravitino). The large scale structure in the universe developing from these two models is similar, but they may be distinguished based on observations of structure on small scales (of order megaparsec or smaller). It was previously shown by the PI that dark matter from early decays could alleviate the problems besetting cold dark matter on these small scales.
All the results from the above research and source codes of the gravitational lensing and CMB related software written as part of the research will be made publicly available. Additional outreach includes a plan to strengthen and expand the existing Physics road show program at UC Irvine.
