Professor Ryan Cooke, from our Department of Physics, has been awarded a £5.6m Royal Society fellowship to investigate the first moments after the Big Bang.
Ryan will lead a project providing the earliest view of what the Universe is made of and search for physics that might be missing from our current understanding of the Universe. This includes the possibility of identifying the nature of the dark matter.
The 10-year project will be funded by the Royal Society Faraday Discovery Fellowship scheme.
Investigating how the Universe began
Ryan will lead a research group searching for previously unknown light particles that cannot easily be detected in laboratories.
These light particles could explain the mysterious dark matter that makes up much of our Universe.
Scientists know that dark matter exists because of its gravitational effects on the wider Universe. However, nobody yet knows what the dark matter is made of.
One possibility is that it could be light particles that are difficult, or even impossible, to detect directly on Earth with current technologies.
The Universe as a laboratory
By studying light elements created in the seconds and minutes after the Big Bang, the team will test whether unknown forms of physics influenced the Universe's earliest development.
But just how do you go back in time to study the first seconds after the Big Bang? Well, it all comes down to what was formed in these first moments, and what came later.
Immediately after the Big Bang, light elements - hydrogen, helium and lithium - were formed. All other elements that we know of were formed by nuclear fusion reactions within stars.
Ryan's work will look for parts of the Universe untouched by stars, and study these, to measure the chemical fingerprint of the Big Bang. This chemical fingerprint can tell us precisely what the Universe was made of during its very first moments.
By studying evidence left behind from the first minutes after the Big Bang, we hope to uncover new clues about the fundamental building blocks of nature. Our goal is to reach a level of sensitivity that could reveal particles that are almost impossible to detect in laboratory experiments
At the forefront of new capabilities
This new fellowship-funded work will put Durham's researchers at the forefront of international cosmology research to understand the origins and composition of the Universe.
As a leading centre for cosmology, astronomy and particle physics, Durham is uniquely placed to spearhead this research. Researchers will also benefit from advanced computing facilities that support large-scale simulations, data analysis and machine learning.
Ryan is a leading expert in fundamental physics. The Royal Society Faraday Discovery Fellowship is his largest research funding award to date.
He will lead the research group, based predominantly at Durham University, with an additional collaborator at the University of Edinburgh.
