College of Arts & Sciences

Omesh Dhar Dwivedi

College of Arts & Sciences Physics

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Russell Neilson

Physics

Johannes Wagner, Matthew Brassler Co-Mentors

Building GEANT4 Simulations of the Drexel Bubble Chamber for Dark Matter Detection

Observable Matter refers to materials that interact with both gravitational and electromagnetic forces. Consequently, every form of matter we encounter around us every day is observable matter. However, recent studies of the universe have led to the conclusion that observable matter constitutes only approximately 5% of the known universe. The remaining parts of the universe are constituted by hypothetically predicted Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Dark Matter is a form of matter that doesn’t undergo electromagnetic interactions and therefore cannot be perceived physically. The prime candidates to be the constituent of Dark Matter are WIMPs (Weakly interacting Massive Particles). Attempts are being made to detect the presence of WIMPs using Bubble Chambers by PICO, an international scientific collaboration. Drexel University hosts a prototype PICO Bubble Chamber.

My research in particular, involves building and performing a GEANT4 Monte Carlo Simulation of the radioactive source at the Drexel Bubble Chamber. The GEANT4 simulation allows us to calculate the probability of any kind of background radiation, such as gamma or cosmic radiation, nucleating a bubble in our experiments, therefore affecting the outcome of our experiments.