Shedding Light on Dark Matter: Seeing the Invisible with Gravitational Lensing

Speaker: Marusa Bradac, KIPAC Institute, Stanford

When: January 30, 2007 (Tue), 03:15PM to 05:00PM (add to my calendar)
Hosted by: Emanuel Katz

This event is part of the Physics Department Colloquia Series.

The cluster of galaxies 1E0657-56 has been the subject of intense ongoing research in the last few years. This system is remarkably well-suited to addressing outstanding issues in both cosmology and fundamental physics. It is one of the hottest and most luminous X-ray clusters known and is unique in being a major supersonic cluster merger occurring nearly in the plane of the sky, earning it the nickname “the Bullet Cluster”. In this talk I will present our measurements of the composition of this system, show the evidence for existence of dark matter, and describe limits that can be placed on the intrinsic properties of dark matter particles. In addition, I will explain how this cluster offers a serious challenge to MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) theories.