This award funds the research activities of Professor Vera Gluscevic at the University of Southern California (USC).
Particles that represent the building blocks of the visible universe account for merely 15% of all matter known to exist. The rest is dark matter, invisible to telescopes, and dominating virtually all galaxies. Dark matter cannot be explained by any known particles; its physical nature is yet to be understood. At the same time, dark matter has shaped the Universe throughout its history, leaving clues in observational data. As part of her research, Professor Gluscevic will use a combination of cosmological observations, computer simulations, and analytic theory to probe how dark matter might interact with normal matter, and to understand how these interactions might affect observational data. This research advances the national interest by promoting the progress of science, in particular our understanding of the building blocks of the Universe in which we live. This work also has significant broader societal impacts. Professor Gluscevic will engage several students and a postdoc in research projects related to this proposal, providing them with essential training in the field. She will also start a dedicated lecture series within the Women in Physics program at USC, to help promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM, enhance networking opportunities, and strengthen the sense of belonging amongst women in Physics and Astronomy.
More technically, the key objective of Professor Gluscevic’s work is to develop, implement, and apply a novel comprehensive theoretical framework for probing dark-matter particle interactions with baryons, using a variety of observations. In particular, this work will enable consistent computation of the effects of dark matter-baryon interactions on various cosmological observables, improve treatment of theoretical uncertainty in calculation of signals within interacting-dark-matter cosmology, and provide new limits on dark-matter theory. Development of the proposed framework at present is critical, in preparation for analyses of data from the next generation of cosmological and astrophysical surveys.
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.
