Discovering Dark Matter Clumps and Primordial Particles with Galaxies

Abstract

Cosmological observations and galaxy dynamics seem to imply that five out of six parts in mass of all matter in the universe is composed of dark matter, which is not accounted for by the Standard Model of particles. The cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm has been extremely successful at describing observations on large-cosmological scale. However, many different dark matter candidates have the same observable effects as CDM on large-length scales. One possible avenue to distinguish between these different models is to look on much smaller-length scales, where usually dark matter models become distinguishable. This research developed the theoretical framework and statistical tools needed to map the detailed distribution of dark matter on subgalactic scales using strong gravitational lensing. A second goal of this research was to build new statistical techniques that efficiently exploit the full power of cosmic-structure data from next-generation surveys. Galaxy clustering on large scales provides significant cosmological information through the power spectrum. Additional information can be gained from higher-order statistics. This research provided new ways to understand the initial conditions of the universe from current and upcoming cosmological surveys.