Kansas: Researchers Tackle Mysteries of Dark Matter, Dark Energy

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Researchers Tackle Mysteries of Dark Matter, Dark Energy
University of Kansas | 2019 Mar 04

Distribution of Dark Matter, Galaxies and Hot Gas in the Core of the Merging Galaxy Cluster Abell 520 ~ Credit: NASA, ESA, CFHT, CXC, M.J. Jee, and A. Mahdavi

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Can’t find your house keys? Frustrated by that sock that seemed to disappear during laundry?

Don’t feel so bad. It turns out scientists have a hard time detecting some 95 percent of the matter and energy that make up the universe, according to NASA.

Indeed, the nature of “dark matter” and “dark energy” might be the most outstanding riddle in science. The presence of dark matter and dark energy has been established in cosmology through gravitational effects on scales from the size of a galaxy to that of the universe. But, neither the Standard Model of physics nor Einstein’s General Relativity can account for dark matter and dark energy. According to experts, “beyond the standard model” physics are needed to resolve properties of dark matter and dark energy at the microscopic level.

Now, a research team from the University of Kansas has earned a three-year, $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy EPSCoR State/National Lab Partnership program as well as $150,000 in matching funds from the state of Kansas to hunt new ways to detect and understand dark matter and dark energy. ...