One of the main goals of the special research area “Dark Universe Explorations” is to learn more about dark matter and dark energy in the universe. “Together, these invisible components make up 95% of the energy of the universe, but their respective physical nature is still largely unknown,” explains Tim Schrabback, speaker of the new research network from the Department of Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck. Neither dark matter nor dark energy can be observed directly. Indirectly, however, they leave signatures, for example in the distributions and properties of galaxies, as well as in tiny distortions of the observed galaxy shapes due to the gravitational lensing effect. “Comparing galaxy observations with theoretical models can therefore shed light on the dark universe,” says Tim Schrabback.
The project team is using observational data from two new space telescopes: The European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid mission launched in July 2023 and is expected to deliver razor-sharp images of more than a third of the night sky by the end of the decade. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a joint project between ESA, NASA, and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), allows scientists to look deep into the past of the universe in small areas of the sky.
Within the framework of international research collaborations, the DUNE team analyzes Euclid data at the University of Innsbruck and observational data from the JWST at the ISTA. To draw conclusions about the properties of dark matter and dark energy, the observational results are compared with simulated “virtual universes.” These simulations are (co-)developed at the University of Vienna and model cosmic structure formation in these digital reconstructions of our Universe: COLIBRE is a simulation project that implements a small number of highly detailed simulations. Complementing this are the simulations from the DISCO project, which can quickly test many different theories and utilize the new Austrian supercomputer MUSICA.
DUNE opens a new window to the Dark Universe for Austria and brings us one step closer to answering the biggest questions in modern cosmology.