Astro-particle physics is an interdisciplinary and quickly expanding field which applies theoretical particle physics solutions to astrophysical problems. Exampes of research in astro-particle physics includes dark matter, dark energy, cosmic ray fluxes, neutrino masses, and large scale structure of the universe (and many more).
The field of astro-particle physics is a fusion of astronomy & cosmology and particle physics. This area of research routinely uses astrophysical data to put limits on very fundamental theories of particle physics. Observed cooling rates of red giant stars, for exampe, have been used to put limits on the properties of axions, particles that have been predicted to solve the strong-CP problem in the Standard Model of particle physics. If you love astronomy but are also drawn to fundamental physics like quantum mechancis and particle physics, astro-particle physics offers the opportunity to do both. For astro-particle physicists, the universe is our laboratory!
Dr. Duda and a former undergraduate Katherine Garrett from a photoshoot for the Creighton Magazine.
Our research was profiled as part of a piece on undergraduate research in the Arts and Sciences college.
How can I get involved? Students typically join our research group by first conducting a reading course over a semester - students will read about the "big ideas" in cosmology, including cosmic expansion, dark matter and dark energy, extra dimensions, etc. Once a sufficient number of upper division physics courses have been completed, students will be assigned a research project and will work closely with Dr. Duda and other students in the research group. If you're interested, please stop by, send an e-mail, or stop Dr. Duda in the hallway.
Astronomers and physicists have suspected as early as the 1930s that electrons, protons, and neutrons, in other words the constituents that build up our bodies, are not the dominant form of matter in the Universe.
Current Evidence for Dark Matter
What is Dark Matter?
Detecting Dark Matter
Current Research
Current Evidence for Dark Matter:
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Although dark matter has never been detected in the laboratory (or created in an accelerator), particle physics does offer a concrete model for dark matter. It is important to understand that there is no dark matter candidate in the Standard Model -- dark matter should be electrically neutral and weakly interacting. Only the neutrino satisfies these constraints; however, the neutrino is far from an ideal dark matter candidate. Recent results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisoptropy Probe (WMAP) have placed the limit m < 0.23 eV on neutrinos, which corresponds to a cosmological density of < 0.008 (in terms of the critical density). Hence, neutrinos are simply not massive enough to make up the dark matter. So we conclude that we need to look beyond the Standard Model for a dark matter particle candidate. So what is dark matter made up of? Well, we're not sure, but we've got some exciting ideas. |
Image courtesy PDG (Particle Adventure) |
One promising extension to the Standard Model is the theory of supersymmetry. At the barest level, in supersymmetry (SUSY) each fermion in the SM receives a bosonic superpartner, and each boson in the SM receives a fermionic superpartner.
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So what is supersymmetry? Basically, it's a fermion-boson symmetry which we add to the Standard Model. Recall, in the Standard Model there is no way to turn a quark into a lepton or vice-versa -- supersymmetry allows us a way around this restriction. Remember, fermions are objects with half-integer spin, and bosons are objects with integer spin. Quarks and leptons are fermions, while force carriers like the photon and gluon are bosons.
So each elementary particle now has a superpartner |
Image courtesy PDG (Particle Adventure) |
Although it seems like an unnecessary complication to double the number of fundamental particles, supersymmetry is extremely appealing theoretically for the following (highly technical) reasons:
In the two theoretical models with which I work (constrained MSSM and MSUGRA), the neutralino (a linear combination of the superpartners
of the photon, neutral Z, and two higgs states) is the LSP and thus a dark matter candidate.
Dark matter can be detected in one of two ways: directly or indirectly. Each detection method involves detecting particles in the laboratory the old-fashioned way (through scattering and collisions). What we mean by the distinction is the following: In direct detection, a neutralino is actually observed in the laboratory (usually through an inelastic collision with a nucleus in which a small amount of energy is deposited, typically a few keV) while in indirect detection, the neutralino is never seen directly; rather, the decay products of the neutralino are detected and the presence of a neutralino is inferred.
Some prominent Direct Detection Experiments:
EDELWEISS (Experience pour DEtector Les WIMPS en Site Souterrain)
CDMS (Cryogenic Dark Matter Search)
ZEPLIN (originally ZonEd Proportional scintillation in LIquid Noble gases) at UCLA
CRESST II (Cryogenic Rare Event Search using Superconducting Thermometers)
Each direct detection experiment uses slightly different means and detection mediums -- browse through their websites to get a feel for how interesting, massive, and tremendously difficult these experiments are to perform.
Some prominent Indirect Detection Experiments:
ICECUBE (at the South Pole - literally a detector of size 1 km cubed)
NESTOR (Neutrino Extended Submaire Telescope with Oceanographic Research)
ANTARES (Astronomy with a Neutrino Telescope and Abyss environmental RESearch)
NEMO (NEutrino Mediterranean Observatory)
RICE (Radio Ice Cherenkov Experiment)
Baikal
In general, indirect detection schemes use a large volume of ice of water to act as the detection medium. Neutrions from neutralino annihilations produce muons somewhere near the detector, which are then subsequently detected by the cherenkov light they emit as they travel faster than the speed of light in water or air.
The astro-particle physics research group is currently involved in several projects:
The Cosmic Microwave Background is an imporant tool in the understanding, search, and characterization of dark matter.
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Preprint Servers/Article Databases/Online Journals
Numerical Simulations and Computational Resources
National Labs and Accelerators
Other Sites
Funded Proposals:
NASA Nebraska Space Grant Consortium/EPSCoR Student Fellowshop: "Constraining the Dark Matter Velocity Distribution Function using Direct
Detection Data", $2500 (September 1, 2013 - May 31, 2014).
NASA Nebraska Space Grant Consortium/EPSCoR Grant (Role-PI:): “CoGeNT vs. Xenon 100 A 21st Century Scientific Controversy and New Theories for Light Dark Matter”, $8,858 + internal matching, (September 1, 2012 - May 31, 2013).
NSF Course Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) Grant (Role: co-PI): “Rebuilding the Astronomy Curriculum around Robotic Telescope Observations and Active Learning Exercises”, $199,307 (August 15, 2010 - July 31, 2013).
NASA Nebraska Space Grant Consortium/EPSCoR - Research Mini-Grant (Role: PI): “Homing in on Dark Matter: Following up leads from Direct and Indirect Detection, $11,073 + internal matching, (September 1, 2010 - May 31, 2011).
NASA Nebraska Space Grant Consortium/EPSCoR - Mini-Grant (Role: PI): “Extra Dimensional Dark Matter and the 2009 CDMIS II Results/Dark Matter Annihilations and the Observed Position Excess from Fermi and PAMELA, $16,000 + internal matching (August 1, 2010 - March 31, 2011).
NASA Nebraska Space Grant Consortium/EPSCoR - Research Seed Grant (Role: PI): “Indirect Detection of Dark Matter in Non-Standard Cosmologies”, $13,630 + internal matching (January 1, 2009 - March 31, 2010).
NASA Nebraska Space Grant Consortium/EPSCoR - Research Seed Grant (Role: PI): “Indirect Detection of Dark Matter in Non-Standard Cosmologies”, $7,630 + internal matching (January 2008 - August 2009)
NASA Nebraska Space Grant Consortium - Research Seed Grant (Role: PI): “Prompt Muon and Neutrino Flux from High Energy Cosmic Ray Showers and Backgrounds at Neutrino Telescopes”, $5,500 + internal matching (November 2006 - August 2007)
Brooijmans, G., Gripaios, B., Moortgat, F., Santiago, J., Skands, P., Duda, G. and others, “Les Houches 2011: Physics at TeV Colliders New Physics Working Group Report”, arXiv:hep-ph/1203.1488.
Garrett, K. (now Bruckman, K.), and Duda, G., “Dark Mater: A Primer”, Advances in Astronomy, vol. 2011, Article ID 968283, 22 pages (2010).
Duda, G., Kemper, A., Gondolo, P., "Model Independent Form Factors for Spin Independent
Neutralino-Nucleon Scattering from Elastic Electron Scattering Data", J. Cosm. Ast. Part. Phys.
04, 012 (2007).
Duda, G. "What can 1970's Elastic Electron Scattering Experiments tell us about the Direct De-
tection of Dark Matter?", Nuc. Phys. B (Proc. Suppl.) 173, 68-71 (2007).
Duda, G. "Dectectability of weakly interacting dark matter candidates", New Ast. Rev. 49, 139-142
(2005).
Underlined names are Creighton undergraduate students.
Click here for a full list of my astro-particle and theoretical particle physics publications.
Duda, G., “Everything you know is wrong: Living in a Dark Universe”, University of Nebraska Omaha, December 7, 2012.
Duda, G., “The Dark Sector: From Particle Physics to Cosmology”, Kansas State University, Oc- tober 17, 2011.
Duda, G., “Dark Matter and Physics Beyond the Standard Model”, 121st Annual Meeting of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences, Aeronautics and Space Science Section, April 15, 2011.
Duda, G., “Everything you know is wrong: Living in a Dark Universe”, Sigma Pi Sigma Induction Ceremony Award Address, Villanova University, April 23, 2010.
Duda, G, “ Everything you know is wrong: A Tale of Missing Mass and Energy in the Universe”, Science Seminar Series, University of Dubuque, March 23, 2010.
Duda, G., “Dark Matter in Non-Standard Cosmologies”, 119th Annual Meeting of the Nebraska Academy of the Sciences, Aeronautics and Space Science Section, April 17, 2009.
Garrett, K., Schuk, S., and Duda, G., "The Eect of a Late-Decaying Scalar Field on the Dark Matter Density, American Physical Society Division of Nuclear Physics Meeting 2008 (October 23-26, Oakland, CA).
Duda, G. "Dark Matter and Nuclear Form Factors: What can 1970s nuclear physics tell us about dark matter today?", Graduate Fellowship 2007 Award Talk, Creighton University, October 9, 2008.
Duda, G., "Teaching Dark Matter to Undergraduates", American Association of Physics Teachers Summer 2008 Meeting (July 21, 2008, Edmonton, Alberta).
Zakaria, M. and Duda, G., "Zenith Angle Dependence of Prompt Neutrino and Muon Fluxes in Cosmic Ray Interactions", American Physics Society April Meeting 2007 (April 16, 2007, Jacksonville, Florida).
Reifenberger, G. and Duda, G., "Uncertainties in Direct Dark Matter Detection Rates due to Nuclear Form Factors", American Physics Society April Meeting 2007 (April 16, 2007, Jacksonville, Florida).
Duda, G. "Realistic Neutralino-Nucleon Elastic Scattering Form Factors from Elastic Electron Scattering Data: What can nuclear physics from the 1970s tell us about Direct Dark Matter Searches?", 7th UCLA Symposium on Sources and Detection of Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe 2006 (February 23rd, Marina del Rey, Los Angeles).
Licate, L. and Duda, G. "Zenith Angle Dependence of Prompt Muon and Neutrino Fluxes in High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions", American Physical Society April Meeting 2005 (April 16 - 19, Tampa, Florida).
Kemper, A. and Duda, G. "Neutralino Nucleon Scatting Rates from with Realistic Form Factors from Elastic Electron Scattering Data", American Physical Society April Meeting 2005 (April 16-19, Tampa, Florida).
Kemper, A. and Duda, G., "Neutralino Nucleon Scatting Rates from with Realistic Form Factors from Elastic Electron Scattering Data", American Physical Society Division of Nuclear Physics Meeting 2004 (October 29-31, Chicago).
For fall 2009 group meetings will occur on ...
Here's some pictures of my previous and current students from past events.
Here's the group in the summer of 2006
(From left to right: Katherine Garrett, Dr. Duda, George Reifenberger, Mohammed Zakaria, and Ryan Collins)
Dr. Duda and Katherine Garrett presenting a poster at the American Associate of Physics Teachers Physics Education Research conference in Edmonton, Canada in July 2008.