Neutrino Hunt for Dark Matter in the Sun
Carsten Rott (OSU/CCAPP)
Despite overwhelming evidence that it composes the vast majority of the mass in the Universe, dark matter's particle properties literally remain in the dark. Identifying the mysterious nature of dark matter is one of today's most pressing scientific problems and is being sought for using colliders, direct-detection experiments, and powerful indirect techniques. The observation of a high energy neutrino flux from the Sun would be a smoking gun signature for self-annihilating dark matter and provides a high discovery potential. I will describe the current status of dark matter searches from the Sun and discuss the prospects for observing signals at current and next generation neutrino detectors.
Zooming in on in AGN Structure with Microlensing
Ana Mosquera (OSU/Astronomy)
The main observational problem for testing accretion disk models lies in the inability to resolve the emission regions of quasars, since no astronomical method allows us to direct imaging their central engine. In this talk I will review how gravitational microlensing provides a natural telescope to zoom in on in the regions closest to the SMBH and its implications.
