How can we predict that Earth is accumulating or shepherding dark matter? We need a method to support that prediction. Better yet, can we quantify that prediction: how is the dark matter distributed? What shape does it take? If we can predict how dark matter clusters near the Earth, we can assist planning terrestrial dark matter experiments. If we show how dark matter accumulates in orbit, we lay the foundation for planning space missions that observe dark matter in space. For this project, we use a software simulation to predict the details of how dark matter interacts with the Earth, named Dark matter Object ORiented Simulation Tool with Extended Precision, or simply DOORSTEP.
Open Source Scientific and Visualization Software
It would be nearly impossible to create DOORSTEP from scratch. Thankfully today we have decades of code on the Internet to leverage. The following list are key projects and their websites. These resource have proven critical to the development of DOORSTEP.
- Drs. Karsten Ahnert and Mario Mulansky’s contribution to the BOOST C++ library collection, ODEINT, a library to perform numerical integrate differential equations. They presented an overview of the library at the CPPNOW conference in 2012, from which a video and presentation are available.
- Dr. Stefano Boccelli’s quickstart guide to coding with the BOOST ODEINT library.
- Dr Alan Freitas’ Matplot++, a comprehensive wrapper to ease the generation of publication quality visuals using gnuplot.
The Windchime Project
Dr. Dale Carney and a host of other scientists have formed the WindChime Project. The premise of the project is that dark matter can be observed through its gravitational interaction alone. This diverse group of experimentalists and theorists have established a roadmap to explore the observability of dark matter, through gravitational force only, in the laboratory. My goal is for this research using DOORSTEP is to contribute to WindChime in the space domain. Here is the Wind Chime’s white paper.