Date/Time
Date(s) - 09/03/2005
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Title: The Dark Matter Mystery in the Age of Precision Cosmology

Speaker: Dr. Larry Widrow

Institute: Queens University, Kingston

Location: ABB 102

Description:

The past decade has witnessed one of the most dramatic advances in our understanding of the Universe. Fundamental cosmological parameters such as the expansion rate, age, and matter density have been determined with an accuracy unimaginable as recently as the 1980’s. A picture of the Universe has emerged wherein most of the matter is nonluminous and composed of either an unknown particle or new class of astronomical objects. Even more surprising is the result that the dynamics of the Universe on the largest scales is dominated by a mysterious “dark tension”. This talk will focus on the dark matter question. I will describe terrestrial experiments designed to detect elementary particle dark matter candidates, observational surveys that search for compact astrophysical objects, and the theoretical issues surrounding these efforts. Preliminary results from a gravitational microlensing survery toward the Andromeda Galaxy will be presented.