Project Grant 2307789

The National Science Foundation Division of Astronomical Sciences awarded a $202,576 Project Grant to The Trustees of Princeton University, doing business as Princeton University, under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049). The grant supports a collaborative research effort to study how to indirectly test and constrain the properties of dark matter through observations of individual galaxies. Key deliverables include: 1) new, publicly available software modules implementing models of dark matter particles within the GIZMO cosmological simulation codebase; 2) a public dataset of simulated Milky Way-like and dwarf galaxies with varying dark matter models but identical initial conditions and baryonic physics; 3) a set of observationally testable predictions that can be used to constrain or rule out different classes of dark matter models, utilizing both traditional and machine learning-based analyses; and 4) the development of a network of graduate researchers and postdocs with cross-disciplinary expertise spanning theoretical dark matter models, galaxy formation, and observational predictions. The award period is from August 15, 2023 to July 31, 2026.