Darkly Charged Dark Matter
Dark matter by its very nature is elusive. Despite the abundant evidence for its existence, its nature remains a mystery. The challenge to theorists is to imagine the many ways in which it can hide in order to anticipate ways in which it might be discovered. In this talk, I discuss dark matter and how we might hope to find it – even if its interactions with our matter are limited to gravitational. I’ll even discuss some more speculative possibilities for how dark matter could have impacted evolution on Earth.
Professor Lisa Randall studies theoretical particle physics and cosmology at Harvard University. Her research connects theoretical insights to puzzles in our current understanding of the properties and interactions of matter. She has developed and studied a wide variety of models to address these questions, the most prominent involving extra dimensions of space. Her work has involved improving our under-standing of the Standard Model of particle physics, supersymmetry, baryogenesis, cosmological inflation, and dark matter. Randall’s research also explores ways to experimentally test and verify ideas and her current research focuses in large part on the Large Hadron Collider and dark matter searches and models.
Randall has also had a public presence through her writing, lectures, and radio and TV appearances. Randall’s books, Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions and Knocking on Heaven’s Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World were both on the New York Times’ list of 100 Notable Books of the Year. Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty Space was released as a Kindle Single in the summer of 2012 as an update with recent particle physics developments. Her most recent book, Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, was on the NYT bestseller list and elaborates on some of the topics discussed in today’s lecture.
Introducer and Co-host: Csaba Csaki, Cornell University
