Research Specialization

Dark matter phenomenology, especially direct dark matter detection, local dark matter distribution, dark halos in cosmological simulations, and dark substructures; Astroparticle physics.

My research is focused on dark matter phenomenology, and more specifically on developing various strategies to significantly improve our knowledge of the dark matter distribution in our Galaxy. Understanding the nature and distribution of dark matter in the Milky Way is a fundamental problem in astroparticle physics, and has important implications for attempts to discovering dark matter. The long-term goal of my research is to identify the particle nature of dark matter, through its distinct signatures on the Galactic dark matter distribution. I use various approaches to probe the dark matter distribution in the Milky Way, taking advantage of state-of-the-art high resolution cosmological simulations and recent high precision astronomical data. In one approach, I study the implications of hydrodynamic simulations of galaxy formation for dark matter direct and indirect searches. This is done by identifying simulated galaxies that are similar to the Milky Way, extracting their dark matter density and velocity distribution, and using these distributions in the analysis of data from dark matter experiments. In another approach, I study the interaction of dark matter subhalos with stellar streams. Analyzing the features induced by these interactions in stellar streams can lead to a measurement of the dark matter subhalo mass spectrum, and provide important information on the particle nature of dark matter. The scope of my research interests also includes tackling other open problems in dark matter phenomenology, as well as exploring different topics in astroparticle physics.

Research Areas

Research Types