QUP postdoctoral fellow Dr. Yu Zhou received the Best Poster Award at the Kashiwa-no-ha Dark Matter and Cosmology Symposium 2024, held by Kavli-IPMU from October 28 (Mon.) to November 1 (Fri.), 2024.

Dr. Zhou has diverse interests in faint signals from space generated by various objects, such as X-rays from the warm-hot intergalactic medium residing in the cosmic web, the polarized CMB signal where the information of the primordial gravitational wave is imprinted, and investigating the nature of dark matter in the astrophysical laboratory. She is developing ultra-sensitive cryogenic detectors to capture such small signals. In the award-winning poster, she pointed out the capabilities of the XRISM satellite for dark matter searches.

On receiving the award, Dr. Zhou commented, “Searching for the nature of dark matter within the astrophysical view enables us to chase for a new frontier. We bring up a new idea that the decaying dark matter signal from Segue 1 dwarf galaxy can be uniquely distinguished from the atomic line if observed with high energy-resolution spectrometers, such as the JAXA's newly launched satellite, XRISM. This work was carried out together with QUP scientists, Volodymyr Takhistov and Kazuhisa Mitsuda. The discussion with them was stimulating and led to this fruitful work.”

（Related Link）
Kashiwa-no-ha Dark Matter and Cosmology Symposium 2024
https://indico.ipmu.jp/event/437/

Paper related to the poster presentation (accepted to Astrophysical Journal)
“Unlocking Discovery Potential for Decaying Dark Matter and Faint X-ray Sources with XRISM”
Yu Zhou, Volodymyr Takhistov, Kazuhisa Mitsuda
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.18189

QUP 3-minute Talking “Dr. Yu Zhou
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkqWowkCN34&t=67s