Upgrading the fuzzy dark matter model
The project will illuminate implications for cosmic structure formation of the hypothesis that dark matter consists of ultra-light scalar particles, generically labeled as Axion-like particles (ALPs). Described as a continuous field, dark matter in this picture can be described as a self-gravitating superfluid on cosmological scales with distinct phenomenology from standard Cold Dark Matter (CDM) due to its coherent nature. The research will extend this new model of Dark Matter to include non-gravitational self-interactions and the effects of a non-condensed corpuscular component and examine their effects on the formation of gravitationally bound cosmological structures as well as the creation of quantum vorticity through numerical simulations. The project will, therefore, merge concepts from Cosmology and Cold Atom Physics to explore a most topical question in modern science.

The experienced researcher, Dr I-Kang Liu will move from Taiwan to the UK to join the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics at the University of Newcastle as a member of a team of cosmologists with strong links to a team of cold atom physicists. A cold atom physicist by training, with an extended network of European and international collaborators in his research field, he will extend his knowledge to a new field, cosmological structure formation, while bringing in his considerable numerical skills to the existing groups to perform the demanding simulations required to fully understand the process of structure formation in this cosmological model.