Minyu Feng L&S Sciences
Searching for the Dark Photon
Dark photon is a hypothesized gauge boson which behaves like a standard photon. It is called dark because it interacts very weakly with normal particles like electrons and protons, but instead interacts more strongly with dark matter. This makes dark photons escape previous detections easily. However, some unexpected radiation from the center of our galaxy implies the existence of dark photon. Therefore, we plan to produce dark photon by annihilation of a pair of particle and anti-particle with enough center-of-mass energy. We can look at the decay products of the dark photon if these products are normal particles (anti-particles). From the information we get about the final state of this process, we can reconstruct the whole process. If we finally find some clues for or against the existence of dark photon interaction, we will open another window to improve our understanding of universe.
Message To Sponsor
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship leads me to a frontier particle physics research for my first time. I am not only gaining experience in real scientific research, but also developing a great interest in this enchanting realm. As I am about to graduate next year and plan to attend a graduate school, it will be valuable to do a fulltime research. During this process, I go through the complete process of research from coming up with ideas to writing the final document. Therefore, it is a precious experience for me to be a SURF participant.