Speaker: Tracy Slatyer, MIT

Host: Jake Simon

Title: Status and Prospects for Dark Matter Searches in Gamma Rays

Abstract: Gamma rays provide a window on extremely energetic astrophysical processes occurring in our Milky Way Galaxy and beyond, and could also hold clues to the nature and interactions of dark matter. Dark matter constitutes more than 80% of the matter in the universe by mass, but its nature is largely unknown. I will discuss a range of results on current and future gamma-ray searches for novel dark matter physics, including prospects for testing classic dark matter scenarios at upcoming ground-based gamma-ray telescopes, the status of a detected excess of gamma rays from the inner Galaxy, and what (if anything) gamma-ray polarization could teach us about new particles.

Bio: Prof. Slatyer is a theoretical physicist who works on particle physics, cosmology and astrophysics. She did her undergraduate degree at the Australian National University before moving to Harvard University for her PhD; she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study for three years before joining the MIT faculty in 2013. Her research is motivated by questions of fundamental particle physics — in particular, the nature and interactions of dark matter — but she seeks answers to these questions by studying possible signatures of new physics in astrophysical and cosmological data. Her particular areas of focus include research into scenarios where the dark matter experiences new forces of nature, precision theoretical predictions for photon signals from heavy colliding dark matter particles, modeling of the possible effects of dark matter interactions on the history of the early cosmos, and hands-on data analysis of high-energy gamma-ray data in search of dark matter signals.

photo credit: Kevin Grady