UNF researchers awarded NSF grant to advance dark matter detection

Two University of North Florida physics professors were recently awarded nearly $600K of a $3.5M National Science Foundation grant to research dark matter. Drs. Chris Kelso and Greg Wurtz will serve as part of a global research team that combines engineering, physics, geo- and materials sciences experts to develop a convergence framework to establish whether evidence of interactions between dark matter and ordinary matter can be found through "mineral detection."

Overwhelming evidence from astrophysics and cosmology shows there is about five times as much dark matter as ordinary matter in the universe. While ordinary matter makes up everything people can see, like stars, planets, and ourselves; dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter that has yet to be directly observed and has only been previously detected through its gravitational influence on visible matter.

Mineral detection could provide a path to determining what dark matter is by studying interactions of crystals in rock samples that have been exposed to dark matter for billions of years. This project will test the feasibility of the mineral detection approach of observing interactions between ordinary and dark matter. The team aims to develop a new path for advancing our understanding of the mysteries of dark matter.

The global research team is from UNF, Virginia Tech, University of Michigan, Stanford University, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, University of Texas Austin, University of Maryland, INFN Ferrara in Italy, University of Zurich in Switzerland, and Jozef Stefan Institute in Germany.

The five-year grant will also fully fund tuition for four students in UNF's interdisciplinary Master of Science degree program in Materials Science and Engineering.

This project was recently highlighted in Physics Today.