Anupam Ray

McDonald Institute

Theory Fellow, Theoretical Astroparticle Physics and Nuclear Astrophysics

About

I am a theorist who works at the intersection of particle physics, nuclear physics, and astro-
physics. I am interested in the areas of theoretical astroparticle physics and
nuclear astrophysics, primarily centered on the phenomenological aspects of dark matter. My work addresses a major puzzle in modern-day science – understanding the nature of dark matter – with the central theme that a variety of celestial objects and terrestrial detectors can help unravel this mystery across a wide mass range.

I am currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute, Queen’s University, and hold an associate postdoctoral position at the Perimeter Institute. I received my Ph.D. in 2022 from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research under the supervision of Prof. Basudeb Dasgupta, and subsequently joined UC Berkeley as an N3AS Fellow (2022–2025) before moving to Canada. I am interested in understanding the nature of dark matter from the lightest to the heaviest scales with the help of particle physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics. 

Since neither the mass of dark matter nor its interactions with ordinary matter are known to us, I believe it is crucial to pursue a broad and flexible strategy that explores the full landscape of possibilities, from the lightest to the heaviest candidates as well as across different interaction channels. This perspective naturally leads me to engage in work at the interface of theory and phenomenology, where I aim to build bridges between fundamental theory, astrophysical observations, and terrestrial experiments, contributing to a deeper understanding of the building blocks of our universe.

On the other hand, dark matter could be very heavy, but so strongly interacting that it gets stopped before reaching a detector, or so rare that it almost never passes through detectors at all. I’m interested in dark matter propagation in the Earth and astrophysical probes of heavy dark matter, as well as model building for composite dark matter states and gravitationally bound structures.

I am quite fascinated about \pi.

My recent publications can be found here: https://inspirehep.net/author/profile/Anupam.Ray.1