Related papers: Dark Matter and LHC: What is the Connection?
The status of the constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model (CMSSM) will be discussed in light of our current understanding of the relic density after WMAP. A global likelihood analysis of the model is performed including data from…
This write--up gives a rather elementary introduction into particle physics aspects of the cosmological Dark Matter puzzle. A fairly comprehensive list of possible candidates is given; in each case the production mechanism and possible ways…
The WIMP "miracle" suggests a new physics threshold ranging from the weak scale up to several tens of TeVs. Obtaining the correct dark matter density in many theories aiming to solve the hierarchy problem may thus require some amount of…
Kinetic decoupling of dark matter typically happens much later than chemical freeze-out. In fact, local thermal equilibrium is an important assumption for the usual relic density calculations based on solving the Boltzmann equation (for its…
If dark matter is a new species of particle produced in the early universe as a cold thermal relic (a weakly-interacting massive particle-WIMP), its present abundance, its scattering with matter in direct-detection experiments, its…
The observed density of dark matter is of the magnitude expected for a thermal relic weakly-interacting massive particle (WIMP). In addition, the observed baryon density is within an order of magnitude of the dark matter density. This…
The combination of S-matrix unitarity and the dynamics of thermal freeze-out for massive relic particles (denoted here simply by WIMPs) implies a lower limit on the density of such particles, that provide a (potentially sub-dominant)…
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…
We consider a minimal Dark Matter model with just two additional states, a Dark Matter Majorana fermion and a colored or electroweakly charged scalar, without introducing any symmetry to stabilize the DM state. We identify the parameter…
The complementarity between dark matter searches at colliders and in underground laboratories is an extraordinarily powerful tool in the quest for dark matter. In the vast majority of the analyses conducted so far these dark matter…
The nature of dark matter is still an open problem, but there is evidence that a large part of the dark matter in the universe is non-baryonic, non-luminous and non-relativistic and hypothetical Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs)…
It has recently been shown that if the dark matter is in thermal equilibrium with a sector that is highly decoupled from the Standard Model, it can freeze-out with an acceptable relic abundance, even if the dark matter is as heavy as ~1-100…
In these lectures we first concentrate on the cosmological problems which, hopefully, have to do with the new physics to be probed at the LHC: the nature and origin of dark matter and generation of matter-antimatter asymmetry. We give…
Assuming that dark matter is a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) species X produced in the early Universe as a cold thermal relic, we study the collider signal of pp or ppbar -> XXbar + jets and its distinguishability from…
We describe the scenario of WIMPless dark matter. In this scenario of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking, a dark matter candidate in the hidden sector is found to naturally have approximately the right relic density to explain…
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…
Indirect detection of dark matter particles, i.e. the detection of annihilation or decay products of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, has entered a pivotal phase as experiments reach sensitivities that probe the most interesting…
Dark matter is, arguably, the most widely discussed topic in contemporary particle physics. Written in the language of particle physics and quantum field theory, these notes focus on a set of standard calculations needed to understand…
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…
Direct dark matter searches are promising techniques to identify the nature of dark matter particles. I describe the future of this field of research, focussing on the question of what can be achieved in the next decade. I will present the…