Welcome!

Prof. Annika Peter, picture courtesy of the excellent OSU Physics PSAC.

I am a professor of physics and astronomy at The Ohio State University.  I was a co-convener (along with Dr. Yao-Yuan Mao) of the Dark Matter Working Group of the Dark Energy Science Collaboration of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) 2021-2023, the group is now helmed by Peter Ferguson and Nora Shipp.  For ten years, I was a member of and the Science Board of OSU’s Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics, chairing it 2020-2022.

The main question driving my work is: What is dark matter?

As a theoretical dark matter (astro)physicist, my methods for answering this question involve making predictions for experiments and observations for particular models of dark matter and galaxy evolution physics.  I like to use both analytic and computational methods (often involving the supercomputers at the Ohio Supercomputer Center) to make my predictions.  Because of my eagerness (impatience?) to test these predictions, my research operation has an increasing observational footprint.  As such, I am now the lead of the LBT-SONG survey, a member of the MADCASH collaboration, an external collaborator of the Dark Energy Survey, a member of the Merian weak lensing survey, and a member of the DESC of the LSST survey at the Rubin Observatory.  Members of my research group are active in both theory and observations, and at the interfaces of dark-matter physics, galaxy evolution, and cosmic-ray astrophysics.

My research group documents its activities on Instagram and Twitter.

We participate in the CCAPP AstroParticle Lunch and Little Galaxies journal clubs, in addition to Astronomy Coffee and (many) related events.

We are funded by NSF and NASA.

 

Interested in postdoc positions in CCAPP?  Drop me a line (peter. 33 at osu.edu) about how to aim external fellowships here or apply for a CCAPP postdoctoral fellowship (in the fields of cosmology, astroparticle physics, galaxy evolution, high-energy astrophysics).