Found 41 talks width keyword dark matter

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Wednesday July 20, 2011
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain

Abstract

What's the dark matter made of? Do we have any idea of the kind of particle that should constitute ~85% of the matter content of the Universe? In this talk, I will briefly explain the properties that such a particle might have and will present some of the proposed candidates that arise from beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. Next stop will be to give an overview of the present status of dark matter searches, mainly focusing on gamma-rays. There is a tremendous effort currently ongoing that involves an impressive battery of experiments both at the lab and observatories around the world.
In a second part,  the importance of N-body cosmological simulations for the understanding of how dark matter halos form and evolve from the early Universe will be discussed. At this point, some problems arise that it's worth mentioning and that will hopefully lead to debate.

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Tuesday July 19, 2011
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain

Abstract

In the first part of this talk I will present a historical review of the CMB observations, one of the most powerful cosmological probes. Following the first talk of this series, where Jose Alberto described the basic parameters that define the standard cosmological model, I will here summarize the constraints to these parameters that have been derived from these observations. I will also describe the current challenges in this field, in particular the detection of the inflation's B-mode signal through CMB polarization observations, as well as the experiments that have been developed worldwide to this aim, including IAC's QUIJOTE. In the second part, I will focus on the so-called ``missing baryon problem'', i.e. the fact that the half of the expected baryon content of the local universe remains yet undetected. I will describe the theoretical studies that provide hints on where these baryons could be located, and the observational efforts that have been undertaken in this regard.


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Monday July 18, 2011
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain

Abstract

This is the first talk of a series of four aimed to discuss about Cosmology. Here, I will review the basic concepts of the standard cosmological model, which will be further discussed in the following talks, as well as the observational evidence in support of the Lambda-CDM model. As the subject is very broad, I will focus the discussion on topics related with inflation, dark matter and dark energy. Moreover, I will mainly discuss large scale structure probes.


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Thursday April 28, 2011
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucia, Spain

Abstract

The extragalactic background light (EBL) is of fundamental importance both for understanding the entire process of galaxy evolution and for gamma-ray astronomy, but the overall spectrum of the EBL between 0.1 and 1000 microns has never been determined directly from galaxy spectral energy distribution (SED) observations over a wide redshift range. Galaxy SED-type fractions from z=0.2-1 are estimated from a multi-wavelength sample from the AEGIS collaboration that allows a new determination of the evolving EBL. Then, the transparency of the Universe to very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray photons is derived. We find the maximum transparency of the Universe allowed by the standard framework. This result challenges current VHE observations of high redshift blazars. A solution to this problem is discussed utilizing VHE spectra of the highest redshift blazars assuming the existence of a plausible dark matter candidate known as axion-like particle.


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Thursday March 17, 2011
Astronomy Observatory of Marseilles Provence, OAMP, France

Abstract

Dark Matter in Galaxies is an important subject of current astrophysical research. I will concentrate on spiral galaxies, and first give an overview of the subject from the standpoint of a radioastronomer with a long involvement in the subject. This includes a historical introduction and a review of some of the present-day debates. The currently popular Lambda-CDM model has problems on the scale of galaxies. In a second part I will address more specifically the problem that we still do not know how much dark matter there is in spiral galaxies, and how it is distributed. This is due to the fact that the M/L of the visible matter is poorly constrained and that there is a 'conspiracy' between the dark and the baryonic material. I will present various dynamical methods that have been proposed to constrain the dark matter mass distribution and discuss their advantages and disadvantages.


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Thursday January 20, 2011
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, Spain

Abstract

Clusters of galaxies are expected to contain substantial population of cosmic-rays that can yield a significant high energy emission. Moreover, as they are heavily dark matter dominated, they must be considered prime targets for gamma-ray searches for WIMP decay or annihilation. I will present dark matter gamma-ray all-sky simulated Fermi maps of the Local Universe. The dark matter distribution is obtained from a constrained cosmological simulation provided by the CLUES project. I will discuss the possibility for the Fermi-LAT instrument to detect a dark matter gamma-ray signal in extragalactic structures, mainly nearby clusters, in a 5-year all-sky survey and discuss our on work in progress on cosmic-rays. We are also promoting a campaign of observation of the Perseus galaxy cluster with the MAGIC telescopes. Deep observations of nearby clusters with ground-based instruments are crucial to investigate the nature of dark matter as well as the possible gamma-ray emission coming from cosmic-ray acceleration in these environments.

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Friday December 3, 2010
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain

Abstract

The distribution of matter in galaxies of different luminosities and Hubble types, as inferred from observations, plays an important role in cosmology, extragalactic astrophysics, astroparticle physics, as well as in a number of issues in high-energy astrophysics, galactic astronomy, star formation and evolution and general relativity. Not withstanding the general successes of the ΛCDM model in explaining the structure and evolution of the universe, there is a growing conviction that the structural properties of the dark and luminous components in galaxies hold important clues about the nature of dark matter and about the processes that are responsible for galaxy formation. This talk is part of an international initiative known as "Dark Matter Awareness Week".The overall purpose of this event is to increase the awareness of the phenomenology of the mass discrepancy phenomenon in galaxies amongst the many scientists currently working with a theoretical, observational, experimental and simulation approach on issues involving dark matter or its alternatives. The content of the talk will be at the level of a journal club talk with an important dose of review.


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Wednesday October 20, 2010
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain

Abstract

Recent observations of the rotation curve of M31 show a rise of the outer part that cannot be understood in terms of standard dark matter models or perturbations of the galactic disc by M31's satellites. In this talk, we show a possible explanation of this dynamical feature based on the influence of the magnetic field within the thin disc. We have considered standard mass models for the luminous mass distribution, a Navarro-Frenk-White model to describe the dark halo, and we have added up the contribution to the rotation curve of a magnetic field in the disc. We have found a significant improvement of the fit in the outer part when magnetic effects are considered. Our best-fit requires a field strength of ~ 4μG which is compatible with the observations of the magnetic fields in M31.


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Monday October 4, 2010
Imperial College London, UK

Abstract

Contrary to popular belief, on very large distance scales visible matter stubbornly refuses to "fall" according to the laws of gravity of both Newton and Einstein. The paradox has led to the introduction of dark matter, purporting to explain the observed surplus of gravitational pull. The logical possibility remains that there is no dark matter, what you see is all there is, and that the paradox simply signals the break down of the Einstein-Newton theory of gravity. I will review alternative theories of gravity that do away with the need for dark matter. Surprisingly Solar system gravitational experiments, such as those associated with the LISA Pathfinder mission, might settle the score between the two approaches.

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Monday March 22, 2010
Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK

Abstract

Survey operations with the VISTA telescope with it wide field near IR camera started in Feb 2010, following a science verification phase that started in Oct, 2009. I will describe this new 4.2m wide field telescope and the ESO VISTA Public survey program. I will give details of all ESO six public surveys which will be used for a range of galactic and extragalactic science. I am the PI of the largest, by area, VISTA survey, I will focus my talk on the VISTA Hemisphere Survey and I will show how this survey will be used to find quasars in the Epoch of Reionization at redshift greater than 7. The VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS) has been been awarded 300 clear nights on the 4.2m ESO VISTA telescopes. VHS observations started i February, 2010 and the survey will take 5 years to complete. The VHS will cover the whole southern celestial hemisphere (dec<0) to a depth 4 magnitudes fainter than 2MASS/DENIS in at least two wavebands J and K. In the South Galactic Cap, 5000 square degrees will be imaged deeper, including H band, and will have supplemental deep multi-band grizY imaging data provided by the Dark Energy Survey (DES). The remainder of the high galactic latitude sky will be imaged in YJHK and combined with ugriz wavebands from the VST ATLAS, SDSS BOSS and Skymapper optical surveys. The medium term scientific goals include: a huge expansion in our knowledge of the lowest-mass and nearest stars; deciphering the merger history and genesis of our own Galaxy; measurement of large-scale structure out to z=1 and measuring the properties of Dark Energy; discovery of the first quasars with z > 7. In my talk, I will describe the scientific motivation and methodology of the search for quasars with z > 7.

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