Loyola University Chicago

I work on the physics that connects neutrinos, dark matter, and the early universe.

Diagram of a two-neutrino exchange force between two fermions νν̄ ff
The two-neutrino exchange force

Recent news

  • Started a new role as the Undergraduate Program Director in the Physics Department.
  • New preprint with Yúber Pérez-González (UAM-IFT) and Manibrata Sen (IIT-Bombay) on Bose-enhanced neutrino decays in a thermal medium.
  • Congratulations to the class of 2026, heading to graduate programs at UChicago, Northwestern, Illinois Tech, George Washington U, and CSU Long Beach.
  • Heavy dark matter in rapidly evolving massive stars, with Sandra Robles (Fermilab) and Giorgio Busoni (Adelaide), published in JCAP.

About

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at Loyola University Chicago, where I arrived in 2018. Previously, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Colgate University and, before that, a postdoc in the Department of Particle Physics at Tel Aviv University. I obtained my Ph.D. at The University of Texas at Austin under the supervision of Willy Fischler, as a member of the Theory Group.

I am originally from Medellín, Colombia, where I got a B.Sc. in Physics at Universidad de Antioquia and was a member of the Particle Phenomenology Group (GFIF) under the supervision of Diego Restrepo.

I was a KITP Scholar for 2020–2022. My research has beem supported by the National Science Foundation under grant PHY-2310224 and PHY-2013052 during 2020–2023.

Research

Dark matter in stars

Dark matter can scatter off nuclei inside stars, lose energy, and become gravitationally captured. Massive, short-lived stars turn out to be sensitive probes of heavy dark matter.

JCAP 03 (2026) 059

Neutrino forces

Exchanging a pair of neutrinos produces a long-range, parity-violating force. A background of neutrinos changes its strength and range, and might provide a way to probe such a force.

JHEP 02 (2023) 092, JHEP 07 (2024) 107

Neutrinos meet dark matter

New interactions among active neutrinos can enhance the production of sterile-neutrino dark matter in the early universe, a scenario that supernovae can test.

PRL 124, 081802 (2020), JCAP 11 (2022) 014

Neutrinos in hot media

At finite temperature, Bose enhancement can enhance non-standard neutrino decays into lighter neutrinos and a light boson.

arXiv:2606.14441

Other interests include particle cosmology, supersymmetry, black holes and the information paradox, holographic entanglement entropy, and applications of the gauge/gravity correspondence, including earlier work on fluctuation and dissipation in de Sitter space.

Publications

Most recent first. The complete record is on INSPIRE-HEP.

  1. Bose-enhanced neutrino decays in a thermal medium Y. F. Perez-Gonzalez, M. Sen, W. Tangarife arXiv:2606.14441
  2. Heavy dark matter in rapidly evolving massive stars S. Robles, W. Tangarife, G. Busoni JCAP 03 (2026) 059arXiv:2512.22727
  3. The neutrino force in neutrino backgrounds: spin dependence and parity-violating effects M. Ghosh, Y. Grossman, W. Tangarife, X.-J. Xu, B. Yu JHEP 07 (2024) 107arXiv:2405.16801
  4. Fermion pair radiation from accelerating classical systems M. Gavrilova, M. Ghosh, Y. Grossman, W. Tangarife, T.-H. Tsai JHEP 10 (2023) 002arXiv:2301.01303
  5. Neutrino forces in neutrino backgrounds M. Ghosh, Y. Grossman, W. Tangarife, X.-J. Xu, B. Yu JHEP 02 (2023) 092arXiv:2209.07082
  6. Neutrino self-interactions: a white paper Contribution. Editors: N. Blinov, M. Bustamante, K. Kelly, Y. Zhang. Snowmass 2021 Phys. Dark Univ. 42 (2023) 101267arXiv:2203.01955
  7. Core-collapse supernova constraint on the origin of sterile neutrino dark matter via neutrino self-interactions Y.-M. Chen, M. Sen, W. Tangarife, D. Tuckler, Y. Zhang JCAP 11 (2022) 014arXiv:2207.14300
  8. Dirac dark matter, neutrino masses, and dark baryogenesis D. Restrepo, A. Rivera, W. Tangarife Phys. Rev. D 106, 055021 (2022)arXiv:2205.05762
  9. Origin of sterile neutrino dark matter via vector secret neutrino interactions K. J. Kelly, M. Sen, W. Tangarife, Y. Zhang Phys. Rev. D 101, 115031 (2020)arXiv:2005.03681
  10. Probing the two-neutrino exchange force using atomic parity violation M. Ghosh, Y. Grossman, W. Tangarife Phys. Rev. D 101, 116006 (2020)arXiv:1912.09444
  11. Dodelson-Widrow mechanism in the presence of self-interacting neutrinos A. de Gouvêa, M. Sen, W. Tangarife, Y. Zhang Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 081802 (2020)arXiv:1910.04901
  12. Singlet-doublet Dirac dark matter and neutrino masses D. Restrepo, A. Rivera, W. Tangarife Phys. Rev. D 100, 035029 (2019)arXiv:1906.09685
  13. Accretion of dissipative dark matter onto active galactic nuclei N. J. Outmezguine, O. Slone, W. Tangarife, L. Ubaldi, T. Volansky JHEP 11 (2018) 005arXiv:1807.04750
  14. Dynamics of relaxed inflation W. Tangarife, K. Tobioka, L. Ubaldi, T. Volansky JHEP 02 (2018) 084arXiv:1706.03072
  15. Relaxed inflation W. Tangarife, K. Tobioka, L. Ubaldi, T. Volansky arXiv:1706.00438
  16. Extending the scope of holographic mutual information and chaotic behavior N. Sircar, J. Sonnenschein, W. Tangarife JHEP 05 (2016) 091arXiv:1602.07307
  17. Radiative neutrino masses in the singlet-doublet fermion dark matter model with scalar singlets D. Restrepo, A. Rivera, M. Sánchez-Peláez, O. Zapata, W. Tangarife Phys. Rev. D 92, 013005 (2015)arXiv:1504.07892
  18. Holographic Schwinger effect in de Sitter space W. Fischler, P. H. Nguyen, J. F. Pedraza, W. Tangarife Phys. Rev. D 91, 086015 (2015)arXiv:1411.1787
  19. Supersymmetric partially interacting dark matter W. Fischler, D. Lorshbough, W. Tangarife Phys. Rev. D 91, 025010 (2015)arXiv:1405.7708
  20. Fluctuation and dissipation in de Sitter space W. Fischler, P. H. Nguyen, J. F. Pedraza, W. Tangarife JHEP 08 (2014) 028arXiv:1404.0347
  21. Implications of a dark sector U(1) for gamma ray bursts T. Banks, W. Fischler, D. Lorshbough, W. Tangarife Phys. Rev. D 90, 043538 (2014)arXiv:1403.6844
  22. Vector-like fields, messenger mixing and the Higgs mass in gauge mediation W. Fischler, W. Tangarife JHEP 05 (2014) 151arXiv:1310.6369
  23. A singlet extension of the MSSM with a dark matter portal A. de la Puente, W. Tangarife JHEP 07 (2014) 087arXiv:1309.6359
  24. Strong subadditivity, null energy condition and charged black holes E. Cáceres, A. Kundu, J. F. Pedraza, W. Tangarife JHEP 01 (2014) 084arXiv:1304.3398
  25. Quantum fluctuations in holographic theories with hyperscaling violation M. Edalati, J. F. Pedraza, W. Tangarife Garcia Phys. Rev. D 87, 046001 (2013)arXiv:1210.6993
  26. Holographic Brownian motion in magnetic environments W. Fischler, J. F. Pedraza, W. Tangarife Garcia JHEP 12 (2012) 002arXiv:1209.1044
  27. Fast scramblers and non-commutative gauge theories M. Edalati, W. Fischler, J. F. Pedraza, W. Tangarife Garcia JHEP 07 (2012) 043arXiv:1204.5748
  28. Hierarchies of SUSY splittings in holographic gauge mediation W. Fischler, W. Tangarife Garcia JHEP 06 (2011) 046arXiv:1104.2078
  29. Hierarchies of SUSY splittings and invisible photinos as dark matter W. Fischler, W. Tangarife Garcia JHEP 01 (2011) 025arXiv:1011.0099

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grants PHY-2310224 and PHY-2013052. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

Teaching

I teach undergraduate physics at Loyola, including College Physics I with Calculus, Quantum Mechanics, and Freshman Projects. Course information and schedules are on my department faculty page.

Undergraduate research

Loyola offers research fellowships for undergraduates through the Loyola Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (LUROP). If you are a Loyola student interested in theoretical physics, dark matter, or neutrinos, email me!

Mulcahy Fellows mentored

  • Babel Barm, 2025–26
  • Hope Elgart, 2024–25 and 2025–26
  • Bennett Korotko, 2024–25 and 2025–26
  • Sofija Brnovich, 2024–25
  • Andrew Rogers, 2023–24
  • Themistoklis Tzellos, 2023–24
  • Kiet Nguyen, 2021–22 and 2022–23
  • Zach Long, 2021–22
  • Grace Bratrud, 2020–21
  • Jack Kraus, 2020–21
  • Luke Ignell, 2020–21

Student projects

Recent topics include sterile-neutrino dark matter, the relic abundance of dark matter beyond the WIMP paradigm, ultralight dark matter, gravitational waves, black holes and the membrane paradigm, and FRW cosmology and the Hubble tension.

Where my students went next

StudentNext step
Babel Barm ’26PhD (Physics), Illinois Tech
Hope Elgart ’26PhD (Quantum Science and Engineering), UChicago
Bennett Korotko ’26PhD (Physics), George Washington U
Daniel O’Shea ’26
Cole Owen Bucholtz ’26MSc (Electrical Engineering), CSU Long Beach
Tristan Parmerlee ’26PhD (Astronomy), Northwestern U
Sofija Brnovich ’25MSc (Mechanical Eng.), Imperial College London; then PhD, Northwestern U
Alex Lewis ’24PhD (Physics), Michigan State U
Andrew Rogers ’24PhD (Mathematics), Utah State U
Themistoklis Tzellos ’24PhD (Physics), UT Austin
Zach Long ’23MSc (Medical Physics), Duke U ’25; PhD (Biomedical Eng.), U of Iowa
Kiet Nguyen ’23PhD (Physics), Texas A&M
Grace Bratrud ’22PhD (Physics), Northwestern U
Natalie West ’22PhD (Medical Physics), MD Anderson (UT Houston)
Michael Harris ’22Graduate study, George Washington U
Maria Nowicki ’21PhD (Physics), U of Pittsburgh
Andres Jarquin ’21
Luke Ignell ’21MD, Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine
Serena Watson ’21MSc (Mechanical Eng.), CU Boulder ’23
Matthew Asher ’21
Jack Kraus ’21PhD (Physics), Northern Illinois U
Szymon Kasperek ’20MD, UIUC ’25; Radiology resident, Southern Illinois U
Joseph Summers ’20MSc (Physics), U of Utah ’23; part-time instructor, Loyola

Outreach

I co-organize the Latin-American Webinars on Physics, a seminar series connecting researchers across Latin America and beyond, now past its 200th webinar. Past talks are on the LAWPhysics YouTube channel.