Related papers: Direct Detection of Cold Dark Matter
More than 90% of matter in the Universe could be composed of heavy particles, which were non-relativistic, or 'cold', when they froze-out from the primordial soup. I will review current searches for these hypothetical particles, both via…
The majority of the matter in the universe is still unidentified and under investigation by both direct and indirect means. Many experiments searching for the recoil of dark-matter particles off target nuclei in underground laboratories…
The evidence for the existence of dark matter in the universe is reviewed. A general picture emerges, where both baryonic and non-baryonic dark matter is needed to explain current observations. In particular, a wealth of observational…
There is plenty of evidence that most matter in the Universe is dark (non-luminous). Particle physics offers several possible explanations. In this talk I focus on cold dark matter; the most promising candidates are then axions and the…
Astronomical and cosmological observations of the past 80 years build solid evidence that atomic matter makes up only a small fraction of the matter in the universe. The dominant fraction does not interact with electromagnetic radiation,…
Non-baryonic, or "dark," matter is believed to be a major component of the total mass budget of the universe. We review the candidates for particle dark matter and discuss the prospects for direct detection (via interaction of dark matter…
Dark matter detection experiments are getting ever closer to the sensitivity needed to detect the primary particle physics candidates for nonbaryonic dark matter. Indirect detection methods include searching for antimatter and gamma rays,…
The existence of dark matter was suggested, using simple gravitational arguments, seventy years ago. Although we are now convinced that most of the mass in the Universe is indeed some non-luminous matter, we still do not know its…
It is an intriguing possibility that the cold dark matter of the Universe may consist of very light and very weakly interacting particles such as axion(-like particles) and hidden photons. This opens up (but also requires) new techniques…
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), are a leading candidate for the dark matter that is observed to constitute ~25% of the total mass-energy density of the Universe. The direct detection of relic WIMPs (those produced during the…
For many working in particle physics and cosmology successful discovery and characterisation of the new particles that most likely explain the non-baryonic cold dark matter, known to comprise the majority of matter in the Universe, would be…
Astrophysical observations indicate that about 23% of the energy density of the universe is in the form of non-baryonic particles beyond the standard model of particle physics. One exciting and well motivated candidate is the lightest…
[A brief review intended for a general physics colloquium audience.] Astrophysicists now know that 80% of the matter in the universe is `dark matter', composed of neutral and weakly interacting elementary particles that are not part of the…
An ever-increasing body of evidence suggests that weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) constitute the bulk of the matter in the Universe. We illustrate how experimental data, dimensional analysis and Standard Model particle physics…
One of the major challenges of modern physics is to decipher the nature of dark matter. Astrophysical observations provide ample evidence for the existence of an invisible and dominant mass component in the observable universe, from the…
Exotic dark matter together with dark energy or cosmological constant seem to dominate in the Universe. An even higher density of such matter seems to be gravitationally trapped in our Galaxy. The nature of dark matter can be unveiled only,…
Solving the Dark Matter enigma represents one of the key objectives of contemporary physics. Recent astrophysical and cosmological measurements have unambiguously demonstrated that ordinary matter contributes to less than 5 % of the energy…
Underground laboratories host two kind of experiments at the frontier of our knowledge in Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology: the direct detection of the Dark Matter of the Universe and the search for the Neutrinoless Double Beta…
The nature of the dark matter in the Universe is one of the hardest unsolved problems in modern physics. Indeed, on one hand, the overwhelming indirect evidence from astrophysics seems to leave no doubt about its existence; on the other…
Ordinary baryonic particles (such as protons and neutrons) account for only one-sixth of the total matter in the Universe. The remainder is a mysterious "dark matter" component, which does not interact via electromagnetism and thus neither…