Probing the Fundamental Nature of Dark Matter with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

Alex Drlica-Wagner , Yao-Yuan Mao , Susmita Adhikari , Robert Armstrong (1) , Arka Banerjee , Nilanjan Banik , Keith Bechtol , Simeon Bird , Kimberly K. Boddy , Ana Bonaca , Jo Bovy , Matthew R. Buckley , Esra Bulbul , Chihway Chang , George Chapline , Johann Cohen-Tanugi (2) , Alessandro Cuoco (3) , Francis-Yan Cyr-Racine , William A. Dawson , Ana Díaz Rivero , Cora Dvorkin , Denis Erkal , Christopher D. Fassnacht , Juan García-Bellido , Maurizio Giannotti , Vera Gluscevic , Nathan Golovich , David Hendel , Yashar D. Hezaveh , Shunsaku Horiuchi (4) , M. James Jee , Manoj Kaplinghat , Charles R. Keeton , Sergey E. Koposov , Ting S. Li , Rachel Mandelbaum , Samuel D. Mcdermott , Mitch Mcnanna , Michael Medford , Manuel Meyer , Marc Moniez , Simona Murgia , Ethan O. Nadler , Lina Necib , Eric Nuss (2) , Andrew B. Pace , Annika H. G. Peter , Daniel A. Polin , Chanda Prescod-Weinstein , Justin I. Read , Rogerio Rosenfeld , Nora Shipp , Joshua D. Simon , Tracy R. Slatyer , Oscar Straniero , Louis E. Strigari , Erik Tollerud , J. Anthony Tyson , Mei-Yu Wang , Risa H. Wechsler , David Wittman , Hai-Bo Yu , Gabrijela Zaharijas (5) , Yacine Ali-Haïmoud , James Annis , Simon Birrer , Rahul Biswas , Jonathan Blazek , Alyson M. Brooks , Elizabeth Buckley-Geer , Regina Caputo , Eric Charles , Seth W. Digel (6) , Scott Dodelson , Brenna Flaugher , Joshua Frieman , Eric Gawiser , Andrew P. Hearin , Renee Hložek , Bhuvnesh Jain , Tesla E. Jeltema , Savvas M. Koushiappas , Mariangela Lisanti , Marilena Loverde , Siddharth Mishra-Sharma , Jeffrey A. Newman (7) , Brian Nord , Erfan Nourbakhsh , Steven Ritz , Brant E. Robertson (8) , Miguel A. Sánchez-Conde , Anže Slosar , Tim M. P. Tait , Aprajita Verma , Ricardo Vilalta , Christopher W. Walter , Brian Yanny , Andrew R. Zentner

1 MSRC - Marine Sciences Research Center
2 LUPM - Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier
3 LAPTH - Laboratoire d'Annecy-le-Vieux de Physique Théorique
4 OSU - Ohio State University [Columbus]
5 ICTP - Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics [Trieste]
6 SLAC - SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
7 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Pittsburgh]
8 CALTECH - California Institute of Technology

Astrophysical and cosmological observations currently provide the only robust, empirical measurements of dark matter. Future observations with Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will provide necessary guidance for the experimental dark matter program. This white paper represents a community effort to summarize the science case for studying the fundamental physics of dark matter with LSST. We discuss how LSST will inform our understanding of the fundamental properties of dark matter, such as particle mass, self-interaction strength, non-gravitational couplings to the Standard Model, and compact object abundances. Additionally, we discuss the ways that LSST will complement other experiments to strengthen our understanding of the fundamental characteristics of dark matter. More information on the LSST dark matter effort can be found at https://lsstdarkmatter.github.io/ .

Domaines: Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]

Alex Drlica-Wagner, Yao-Yuan Mao, Susmita Adhikari, Robert Armstrong, Arka Banerjee, et al.. Probing the Fundamental Nature of Dark Matter with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. [Research Report] LSST Dark Energy Collaboration. 2019. ⟨hal-02008686⟩