Photograph of Karl van Bibber in 2019

Research Expertise and Interest

Particle Astrophysics, experimental nuclear physics, Accelerator Technology and Neutron Sources

Research Description

Primary current research efforts comprise experimental searches for the dark matter of the universe, i.e. HAYSTAC (Haloscope At Yale Sensitive to Axion CDM), DM Radio (at SLAC), ALPHA (plasmonic haloscope), data-mining the Breakthrough Listen public data release from the Green Bank Telescope, and supporting microwave technology R&D.  Low energy nuclear physics.  Accelerator science and technology.

In the News

New Simulations Refine Axion Mass, Refocusing Dark Matter Search

Physicists searching — unsuccessfully — for today’s most favored candidate for dark matter, the axion, have been looking in the wrong place, according to a new supercomputer simulation of how axions were produced shortly after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.

Researchers harness quantum weirdness to speed the search for dark matter

For more than a century, cosmologists have noted mysterious anomalies in the swirls of stars and galaxies in our universe: The motions of these celestial objects, which should be governed solely by the gravity of the other objects around them, instead seem to be dictated by the gravitational pull of matter that simply isn’t there — or, at least, cannot yet be observed.

Students make neutrons dance beneath Berkeley campus

In an underground vault enclosed by six-foot concrete walls and accessed by a rolling, 25-ton concrete-and-steel door, University of California, Berkeley, students are making neutrons dance to a new tune: one better suited to producing isotopes required for geological dating, police forensics, hospital diagnosis and treatment.