DARK

Established by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF), the Dark Cosmology Centre opened September 1st, 2005 in the Rockefeller building, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, which was initially funded by the DNRF for a duration of ten years (2005-2015).

Today DARK continues to receive funding from a variety of sources, including the Villum Foundation, the European Union/European Commission, Nordforsk, the Carlsberg Foundation, and the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation.

In February 2017, DARK obtained a Niels Bohr Professorship from the DNRF, a grant won by theoretical astrophysicist Prof. Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz. The 10-year long collaboration with prof. Ramirez was thus formalized and enhanced to a formidable level of science in the field of high energy astrophysics.

DARK constitutes the cosmology research group at the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) , which means that several of its staff are permanent faculty members at the NBI, cooperating on the delivery of the astrophysics curriculum at the bachelor's and master's level, and contributing to the overall teaching and research aims of the NBI. 

The DARK team

Currently consists of 30 research staff, science support, 9 PhD students, and a number of MSc students. The team members bring in key expertise and interact closely on a daily basis. In addition, DARK receives around 50 visits per year from international collaborators. 

Activities

At DARK we focus on research, but other activities are also important: research training, teaching, and conveying the results and methods of studying the dark Universe to the public. Increasing the number of women in science, and in particular astronomy, continues to be a high priority.

Bikuben Foundation has funded the 'Yet it Moves!' exhibition in collaboration with Copenhagen Contemporary and the 'Act of Gravity' performances in collaboration with the Recoil Performance Group.

Carlsberg Foundation has funded numerous independent postdoc fellowships at DARK over the years and is currently funding 3 DARK fellows. At present, research on supermassive black holes is supported by a Carlsberg Infrastructure Grant.

The European Research Council ERC supports world-class research. The grants are awarded to excellent researchers at different career levels to help build a team around an original and groundbreaking research idea. The ERC has supported DARK scientists with starting and consolidator grants. At present, the astroparticle and multi messenger astrophysics research is supported by a consolidator grant.

The goal of the Foundation’s astronomy and cosmology grantmaking is to enhance and accelerate new scientific discoveries that illuminate basic understanding of the universe and its celestial objects and processes.

The Independent Research Fund Denmark is supporting research involving students and postdocs at DARK through Project 1 and Project 2 awards to senior scientists.  Currently, the research on supermassive black holes are supported by two such grants.

More than 13 DARK scientists have over the years been supported by Marie Curie. Most recently research on supermassive black holes and AGN has benefited, and in 2024-25 research on dynamics of Galactic streamers will be supported by an award.

DARK received a grant from Novo Nordisk to fund the art meets astrophysics project 'Interference.' NNF is also supporting 'Act of Gravity'.

Villum has supported many young researchers at DARK through various grants over the years and has most recently awarded a Villum Young Investigator grant to support research on the study of dark matter using Galaxy streamers that will start in 2024.

DARK scientists study a wide range of topics related to compact stellar objects and black holes, cosmic explosions, and how the Universe is structured and evolves. The research relies on both theoretical and observational work.

DARK scientists use a range of telescopes, located in space and on the ground and sensitive to all radiation from radio to Gamma-rays and high energy particles. Gravitational wave observations are also used as part of multi-messenger science studies.

Affiliate Scientists

Here you find Scientific publications by DARK researchers and Master's theses and Ph.D. theses by DARK students.

• Master's theses
• Ph.D. theses
• Scientific publications

• ESO facilities https://www.eso.org/sci/facilities.html, including VLT, ALMA
• ESA https://sci.esa.int/ & NASA facilities, including Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, XMM-Newton, Swift, Euclid
• Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) http://www.not.iac.es/
• Danish 1.5m telescope 
• Vera C. Rubin Observatory https://www.lsst.org/
• Greenland Telescope https://greenlandtelescope.dk/

Large collaborations

Computing

• Local DARK cluster: ~2000 cores, 1 Pb storage
• Access to national and international computing resources and storage
• Apple laptops

Large collaborations

• Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) https://yse.ucsc.edu/
• Electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave sources at the Very Large Telescope (ENGRAVE) http://www.engrave-eso.org/
• Mirror-slicer Array for Astronomical Transients (MAAT) http://maat.iaa.es/
• LensWatch https://www.lenswatch.org/
• MIRI European Consortium (guaranteed time observations of high-redshift galaxies and SN 1987A)
• STARGATE (European GRB collaboration)
• Legacy Survey for Space and Time (LSST) https://www.lsst.org/

DARK offers Astronomy and Physics teaching and research training on Bachelor, Masters and Ph.D. level.

BSc and MSc students

The faculty at DARK teaches courses and supervises students in Astrophysics at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen. For the Astronomy and Physics programs and general rules of study, please refer to the University of Copenhagen sites:

• Bachelor in Physics, Astrophysics specialty (in Danish)
• Master's in Physics, Astrophysics program (in English)

PhD students

PhD projects are carried out in a dynamic international environment of daily interaction with the supervisors as well as other students, postdocs and staff at DARK. Typically projects involve state-of-the-art observations obtained at international observatories and/or new theoretical developments. Students typically complete one main project and 2 more 3 smaller projects.

In addition to research, PhD students have some teaching or other communications duties at the Niels Bohr Institute and they are required to take courses, which can be done at DARK or the NBI, through research-based independent projects, and by attending summer/winter schools or courses abroad.

• DARK expects students to develop a significant international network of collaborators.
• All of DARK's PhD students work on projects with researchers internationally, and they spend a significant amount of time abroad attending conferences and international schools, as well as for research stays at institutions abroad.
• DARK's research staff are very international, and they bring the benefits of their wide scientific networks to the Centre.

In addition, DARK hosts up to 100 visitors each year who contribute to DARK science in a number of ways; they infuse ideas and stimulate activity, add their expertise to on-going projects, get inspired and develop projects.

Visit the PhD School of Science

DARK also hosts Danish and international students for long- or short term studies and short-period visits.

The Visitor Programme is an integral part of DARK. Visitors contribute to DARK science in a number of ways; they infuse ideas and stimulate activity, add their expertise to on-going projects, get inspired and develop projects.

DARK's visitor program offers support for collaborators to come to DARK for short and long stays.  In the past 10 years, DARK has hosted more than than 1000 visits from scientists all over the world. 

Opportunities for visits

There is a wide range of opportunities, both regarding scope and duration of the visit. The main criterion is to optimize scientific return. We support short-duration visits of days to weeks as well as long-term visits up to 12 months. Visits of more than 2-3 weeks are strongly encouraged.  Our associates have a standing invitation to visit.

Categories for visits

Generally, visits fall into one of these categories:

• Scientists of world-recognized caliber in one of the areas of interest to DARK.
• Visitors who can contribute to DARK science-related activities.
• Those who would like to collaborate on a specific scientific project.

Visits can take many forms, for example, a single scientist or a research team of co-authors could come to DARK to work on or to finish a paper, to write an important application or proposal.  Suggestions for mini-workshops are also welcome.

Prospective visitors are kindly requested to complete the Visitor Application Form. Before submitting the form, prior contact to a DARK scientist is encouraged.

Support

Work space, computer access, and administrative support are offered to all visitors. Request for financial support should be included on the Visitor Application Form. It is expected that most visits are at least co-funded. However, the availability of financial support is not a prior guarantee.

Visitors are supported by the DARK admin team, who will help with all of the administrative aspects of the visit, including housing.  Any specific or unusual computing needs must be communicated prior to arrival.

The prospective visitor's host (a scientific collaborator at DARK) will introduce the visitor to the scientific and non-scientific life at DARK.