April 2 -4, 2009
Recent observational results on the nature of dark matter have
motivated new research activity in the fundamental nature of dark matter. In a
workshop organized by the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics
(MCFP), Center for Scientific Computation and Mathematical Modeling
(CSCAMM) and Department of Astronomy, physicists and astronomers
gathered to present results on the latest observational evidence for
dark matter and the implications to the theories of structure
formation and their ultimate relation to fundamental theories tied to
the nature of dark matter. The workshop featured twenty-one speakers
from institutions across the US. Over forty scientists from the
University of Maryland and regional institutions attended the meeting,
hosted at CSIC by CSCAMM.
The hunt for the nature of dark matter followed leads from indications
for its nature in two ways: one, its behavior in the formation of
structure in the universe and, two, novel indications for its
annihilation and or decay from unexpected astroparticle observations.
On the astroparticle and particle cosmology side, the workshop heard
from results by Howard A. Baer (University of Oklahoma), Sarah Eno
(UMD), Doug Finkbeiner (Harvard), Carter Hall (UMD), Kara Hoffman
(UMD), Dan Hooper (Fermilab), Manoj Kaplinghat (UC Irvine), Andrey
Katz (UMD), Savvas Koushiappas (Brown), XiaoJun Bi (IHEP China),
Euh-Suk Seo (UMD) and David Thomson (Goddard SFC). From the related
astrophysical and astronomical work, the workshop heard from Marla
Geha (Yale), Riccardo Giovanelli (Cornell), Andrey Kravtsov (U.
Chicago), Adam Lidz (Harvard), Stacy McGaugh (UMD), Rachel Kuzio de
Naray (UC Irvine), Massimo Ricotti (UMD), Louis Strigari (Stanford)
and Rosemary Wyse (Johns Hopkins).
The presentations led to much active discussion of current and future
prospects for determining the nature of dark matter. With such
success and intense interest, the workshop is slated to become an
annual event as a regional meeting on cosmology and astroparticle
physics.
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