Cyr-Racine's Research Group

We are the theoretical particle cosmology group  within the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM. Our research lies at the interface between particle physics, cosmology, and astrophysics, including dark matter and neutrino physics.  Some of our main research interests are listed to the right.  The group is headed by Assistant Professor Francis-Yan  Cyr-Racine.

Dark Matter forms about 85% of all the matter in the Universe, but we still do not know what it is made of. Does it interact at all with the matter that you and I are made of? Does it interact with itself? How can we constrain its particle properties through astrophysical observations? These are the kind of questions that my research is answering.

Our current model of the Universe leaves many questions unanswered, including the fundamental nature of dark matter and dark energy.  The presence of new physics beyond the Standard Model could influence the evolution of the Universe in important ways and leave subtle signatures in cosmological data. The current possible discrepancies between different cosmological data sets could be pointing towards yet unknown cosmological physics. 

Neutrinos are arguably the less constrained particles in the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Since they interact very weakly with ordinary matter, it is difficult to study their properties. However, right after the Big-Bang the Universe was dense and hot, allowing the neutrino to strongly interact with their surrounding. By studying this epoch through cosmic microwave background (CMB) data, we can probe their interactions and compare them with what we expect from the Standard Model