Deciphering the high-energy sky
Partecipanti al progetto
- Regis Marco (Responsabile scientifico)
Descrizione del progetto
The structures present in the Universe are able to form and survive thanks to the presence of a form of matter, known as dark matter (DM). Although we observe its gravitational effects which hold structures together, nothing is known about the fundamental nature of DM, and this is one of the driving mysteries of physics today. The main goal of this project is to investigate the particle nature of DM by searching for X- and ?-rays originated from DM decay or annihilation.
To this aim, we will analyse the angular cross-correlation between surveys of the large scale structure of the Universe (probing the DM distribution via gravity) and X- and ?-ray maps. As a by-product, this study will lead to a deeper understanding of the astrophysical mechanisms contributing to the X- and ?-ray unresolved extragalactic backgrounds in the faint regime, where the statistical approach adopted in this project is more powerful than investigations with single target observations.