Research Interests:
Professor Rene Ong is carrying out research in the areas of astroparticle physics and high-energy astrophysics. His work focuses on the astrophysics of the high-energy Universe, as revealed by gamma rays, neutrinos, and cosmic rays, and on the quest to understand the nature of dark matter. High-energy particles can be produced by many different types of cosmic accelerators, including spinning neutron stars (pulsars), expanding shells of supernova remnants, jets of active galactic nuclei (AGN), and explosions of massive stars (gamma-ray bursts). High-energy particles can also come from new physics processes such as dark matter particle annihilation or primordial black hole evaporation. Dark matter annihilation can produce excess anti-matter particles that can be detected by balloon or satellilte detectors.
Ong's group at UCLA is involved in a number of forefront experiments, including VERITAS (a state-of-the-art ground-based gamma-ray observatory), GAPS (a balloon-borne experiment to search for signatures of dark matter annihilations in the cosmic rays), Fermi (a satellite gamma-ray telescope) and CTA (a very large ground-based gamma-ray observatory that is under development). Click here for details on these projects and on their scientific goals.
Prior to working in the field of high-energy astrophysics, Rene Ong carried out research in cosmic ray physics and particle physics.