I'm a particle theorist and an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, at the Centre for High Energy Physics. I write at The Hindu.
I have another, academics-only website.
What I do
[Details with pictures.] [Emergence podcast.]
Much of my time is spent trying to fathom the nature of dark matter, the ubiquitous, invisible, mysterious stuff that lurks in 85% of the mass of the universe, and is responsible for giving the cosmos its current look on large scales. I have proposed new experiments to unveil dark matter in the sky and in laboratory detectors, and taken part in a search at an underground experiment, DEAP-3600 at SNOLAB. I also study detection of neutrinos from supernovae; I am part of the SuperNova Early Warning System (SNEWS) collaboration.
Additionally, I research scenarios that address long-standing puzzles regarding the Fermi scale (10-16 cm) in the setting of particle colliders.
Selected publications
[Full list in Google Scholar, InspireHEP, arXiv, this PDF.]
*featured as Editors' Suggestion.
Exploring reheated sub-40000 Kelvin neutron stars with JWST, ELT, and TMT,
N. Raj, P. Shivanna, G. N. Rachh,
Phys. Rev. D 109 (2024), 123040*
Subhalos in neutron stars, cosmic rays and old rocks,
J. Bramante, B. Kavanagh, N. Raj,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 128 (2022) 23, 231801
Neutron star internal heating constraints on mirror matter,
D. McKeen, M. Pospelov, N. Raj,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 127 (2021), 061805
Breaking up the proton: an affair with dark forces,
G. Kribs, D. McKeen, N. Raj,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 126 (2021), 011801
Hydrogen portal to exotic radioactivity,
D. McKeen, M. Pospelov, N. Raj,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 125 (2020) 23, 231803*
Neutrinos from Type Ia and failed core-collapse supernovae at dark matter detectors,
N. Raj,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 (2020) 14, 141802
An infrared window on dark kinetic heating of neutron stars,
M. Baryakhtar, J. Bramante, S. Li, T. Linden, N. Raj,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 119 (2017) 13, 131801
First laboratory constraints on Planck-scale mass dark matter,
DEAP-3600 collaboration & N. Raj,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 128 (2022), 011801