Booth Id:
PHYS027
Category:
Physics and Astronomy
Year:
2021
Finalist Names:
Sakamoto, Kenta (School: President Theodore Roosevelt High School)
Abstract:
Little is known about dark matter, which is the matter we cannot see, although it
comprises up to 85% of the mass of the universe. Fortunately, today it is
hypothesized that dark matter is a type of elementary particle which has the ability
of annihilation: where particles annihilate to produce gamma-ray photons, a
detectable source of light. The purpose of the project is to map those dark matter
photons in a catalog of galactic halo masses, which in theory, is found by squaring
the halo mass and also, a map of other astrophysical background signals. With
creating these simulated maps, the goal was to differentiate the two maps, testing
the validity of the dark matter signal. This project concluded that the two maps that
were produced from a catalog of halo masses in the sky showed a clear statistical
difference, thus, supporting the hypothesis that this indirect method to find signals
is valid. With a valid map of signals from dark matter annihilations, such
telescopes that scan for gamma-ray photons in the sky could detect the photons
from actual dark matter by using the statistical properties of the dark matter
signals from the project.