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Visuals: Unit 10

Animations

Dark Matter Annihilation: Dark matter particles could be their own antimatter partners. Therefore, annihilation could occur if two dark matter particles collide.

Haslam Map and WMAP: The Haslam Map measures synchrotron radiation at a radio frequency.

Lux Detector: Rick Gaitskell of Brown University is one member of a team of scientists and researchers attempting to strike particle physics gold.

Lux Detector PMTs: The nucleus recoils and emits scintillation light which we detect using photosensitive detectors at the boundaries of the container.

Lux Detector Water Shield: This multilayered strategy of putting the detector below ground and immersing it in water allows for an extremely low background event rate in their detector.

Particle Annihilation: Annihilation is what happens when a particle meets its antimatter partner.

Synchrotron Radiation: Synchrotron Radiation is generated as charged particles, that are moving near the speed of light, spiral around the lines of a magnetic field.

WIMP Interaction with Xenon: When a WIMP interacts with the xenon, it not only causes an initial burst of light, but it also ionizes the xenon atoms.

Photographs

Axion Dark Matter Experiment: If dark matter consists of axions, the ADMX experiment might detect them within a decade.

Bullet Cluster: Contrasting x-ray and light images of the Bullet Cluster reveal strong evidence for the existence of dark matter.

Coma Cluster: The Coma cluster which provided the first evidence that dark matter exists.

DAMA/LIBRA Project: A technician works on detectors for the DAMA/LIBRA project, which stimulated the theory of dark forces.

Dark Matter Simulation: The distribution of dark matter in the universe.

Fermilab's Search for Axions: Axion hunters: two Fermilab physicists with their experiment designed to detect axions.

Galaxy Cluster: Clusters of galaxies contain significantly more dark matter than visible matter.

MACHO Project: This Australian telescope unsuccessfully sought evidence for the existence of MACHOs based on their putative effect on starlight.

Peebles and Ostriker: James Peebles (left) and Jeremiah Ostriker (right) found evidence for dark matter in their computer simulations.

Rubin, Vera: In the 1970s Vera Cooper Rubin and Kent Ford made observations of galaxies that led them to infer that the galaxies must contain dark matter.

Zwicky, Fritz: Fritz Zwicky suggested the existence of dark matter, and also predicted the transition of ordinary stars into neutron stars and that galaxies could act as gravitational lenses.

Graphics

2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Galactic studies such as the "2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey" will improve our understanding of the distribution of dark and normal matter.

Constituents of the Universe: The composition of the universe, with 96 percent invisible and unfamiliar.

Cosmic Microwave Background: Map of the temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background measured by the WMAP satellite.

Creation of the Earliest Elements: This series of reactions created the lightest elements in the infant universe.

Detecting the Direction of the WIMP Wind: If they exist, WIMPs could stream toward Earth in a specific direction in a "WIMP wind" that might be experimentally detectable.

Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope: NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has spotted an excess of normal matter particles that may have arisen when WIMPs annihilated each other.

Galactic Case for Dark Matter: Observed and predicted rotation curves for the galaxy M33, also known as the "Triangulum Galaxy."

LUX Detector: The Large Underground Xenon detector will have 100 times more sensitivity to WIMPs than previous detection methods.

Quasars and Gravitational Lenses: Gravitational lensing produces more than one image of distant quasars, as seen in this shot from the Hubble Space Telescope.

SQUID Amplifiers in the ADMX Detector: SQUID technology boosts the ability of the Axion Dark Matter experiment to detect the faint signals that would indicate the presence of axions.

Timeline of the Universe: The history of the universe according to our standard model of cosmology.