Expanding the Hunt for Hidden Dark Matter Particles

Theoretical models of dark matter predict that its signals can be detected using low-background radiation detectors. By looking for specific types of dark matter and finding no signal, scientists operating the Majorana Demonstrator experiment have significantly narrowed the characteristics of potential dark matter particles. The results will help design future experiments.

Cosmic ray detectors, built by Utah refugee teens, installed on Refugee Services Center

The detectors, which measure echoes of cosmic particles bombarding Earth’s atmosphere, were built by participants in a program called “Investigating the Development of STEM-Positive Identities of Refugee Teens in a Physics Out of School Time Experience.”

Detecting Neutrinos from Nuclear Reactors with Water

Neutrinos are subatomic particles produced in many types of radioactive decays, including in nuclear reactors. Because neutrinos interact with matter extremely weakly, they are impossible to shield. The SNO+ experiment has just shown that a detector filled with simple water can detect neutrinos from nuclear reactors, even though the neutrinos create only tiny signals in the detector.

Cosmic Rays May Be Key to Understanding Galactic Dynamics

While moving around within the gas in the interstellar medium, cosmic rays kickstart the background protons, which causes a collective plasma wave movement akin to ripples on a lake. The big question is how cosmic rays deposit their momentum into the background plasma. In Physics of Plasmas, plasma astrophysicists review recent developments within the field of studying the streaming instability triggered by cosmic rays, which likely have more impacts on galactic dynamics and the star formation cycle than previously known.

Probing Deeper into Origins of Cosmic Rays

Researchers know cosmic rays originate from the multitude of stars in the Milky Way and other galaxies. The difficulty is tracing the particles to specific sources, because the turbulence of interstellar gas, plasma, and dust causes them to scatter and rescatter in different directions. In AIP Advances, researchers developed a simulation model to better understand these and other cosmic ray transport characteristics, with the goal of developing algorithms to enhance existing detection techniques.

UD Physicist Named Sloan Research Fellow

Frank G. Schroeder, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Delaware, has received the Sloan Research Fellowship, one of the most competitive and prestigious awards available to researchers in the U.S. and Canada early in their careers. Schroeder will use the two-year, $75,000 fellowship to continue his research to uncover the origins of cosmic rays.

Lab-Created Shock Waves Mimic Supernova Particle Accelerators

When stars explode as supernovas, they produce shock waves in the plasma that blast cosmic rays into the universe at relativistic speeds. How exactly they do that remains a mystery. New experiments using powerful lasers have recreated a miniature version of these supernova shocks in the lab, where scientists can observe how they accelerate particles.