Lina Necib:  Searching for the Dark with the Light
Channel: lawphysics
Date: 2022-11-23

Webinar 137

Speaker:
Lina Necib, MIT, USA

Host: Walter Tangarife, Loyola Chicago

Abstract:
Dark matter is ubiquitous in the universe, making up 86% of the matter of the budget of the universe, and yet it remains undetected non-gravitationally. Dark Matter detection experiments rely heavily on the understanding of the local dark matter phase space distribution. In this talk, I will demonstrate how using high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations of the Milky Way along with the largest kinematic stellar catalog to date from the Gaia mission can enable the construction of the first local map of the cold Dark Matter phase space distribution in our Galaxy; this map relies on the understanding of the local kinematic structures. I will thus present three machine-learning techniques that tackle the identification of local stellar structures, one of which led to the discovery of Nyx, a stream of stars in the solar neighborhood that could potentially be the result of galaxy mergers. Finally, I will conclude with an outlook on how the nature of dark matter can be addressed by studying the largest and smallest scales, combining Galactic dynamics, cosmological simulations, machine learning techniques, and stellar spectroscopy to make predictions that Dark Matter experiments can uncover.  

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#darkmatter #astrophysics #gaia #lawphysics #webinar