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Neal Dalal (Univ. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) "Detecting Dark Matter Substructure Using ALMA"
February 11, 2016 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Abstract:
Dark matter halos surrounding galaxies are expected to contain copious substructure, in the form of gravitationally bound subhalos. Local Group observations suggest that our Galaxy has a deficit of substructure (the Missing Satellites Problem), possibly indicating new physics in the dark sector. I will describe how gravitational lensing may be used to measure the amount of dark substructure that exists in typical galaxy halos. In particular, I will explain how observations by the newly commissioned ALMA observatory of dusty galaxies from CMB surveys can probe halo substructure. I will show first results from our ALMA Cycle 2 observations, and argue that ALMA should be able to answer the Missing Satellites Problem in upcoming years.