Probing dark matter with strong gravitational lensing

by Dr Simon Birrer (Stony Brook University)

Thursday 11 May 2023, 15:00 → 17:00 US/Eastern

Small Seminar Room (Building 510A)

Strong gravitational lensing provides a unique window to probe the small-scale dark matter clustering and sub-halo mass function at a regime where different dark matter scenarios can have diverting predictions based on the particle nature (self-interacting, thermal relic, etc). The population of (dark) low mass halos creats imprints in the distortions of lensed images as well as flux ratio perturbations in multiply lensed quasars.

In this talk, Dr. Birrer will lay out the problem and describe current approaches and competitive results with other probes, such as the local group and Lyman-alpha forest, in quantifying the smallest cosmological scales and in revealing the nature of dark matter. Then he will explore the near future highlighting the prospects of this probe with increased sample size and new instrumentation.

 

Topic: Particle Physics Seminar Simon Birrer
Time: May 11, 2023 03:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

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