Science AMA Series: I am Dr Sarah Malik, a dark matter researcher in
Imperial College London’s High Energy Physics Group. My current research
is using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to searching for particles
that make up ‘dark matter’. AMA!
Abstract
Hi Reddit! I’m Dr Sarah Malik, a dark matter researcher at Imperial
College London in the United Kingdom. In October 2015 I was awarded a
grant from the Royal Society to carry out research on producing and
detecting dark matter using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. I
find it fascinating that more than 80% of matter in the Universe is
invisible to us, it doesn’t emit or reflect radiation. This is what we
call “dark matter”. We know it exists because it exerts a
gravitational force on ordinary matter, playing a critical role in
holding together galaxies and shaping the Universe as a whole. There’s
reason to believe that it comprises particles that have mass, are
electrically neutral and don’t decay; beyond that, we have little
understanding of dark matter. How many types of dark matter particles
are there? What types of forces do they exert on each other and on the
ordinary matter particles? My current research aims to address these
very questions. Discovering what 80% of matter in the Universe is made
of will play a significant role in defining the future direction of
particle physics and cosmology and mark an extraordinary development in
our understanding of the world around us. I will be back at 2pm ET to
answer you questions, ask me anything! Proof:
https://royalsociety.org/people/sarah-malik-7571/
http://lpc.fnal.gov/fellows/Sarah_Alam_Malik.shtml To learn more about
me and my research, follow me on Twitter (@SarahAlamMalik
https://twitter.com/SarahAlamMalik). You can also see me talk about dark
matter at the 2015 Blackett Colloquium (https://youtu.be/BHa65maMIFk),
and on the Guardian ‘Big Unknowns’ podcast (from 16:36)
(https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2016/nov/22/big-unknowns-what-is-dark-matter-science-weekly-podcast).
Update Happy Dark Matter Day everyone! I’ll be live for the next hour or
so answering as many of your excellent questions as I can. Update That’s
me signing off now. Thanks so much for your questions and contributions.
I’ll be checking back in from time to time, so feel free to keep the
conversation going. Happy Dark Matter Day!