Related papers: Dark Matter Caustics
These lecture notes aim to provide an introduction to dark matter from the perspective of astrophysics/cosmology. We start with a rapid overview of cosmology, including the evolution of the Universe, its thermal history and structure…
Cold dark matter is conceived as a gas of massive particles that undergo collisions, interact gravitationaly, and exchange quanta of energy. A new nonrelativistic quantum theory is presented for this model of dark matter, based on recently…
It is shown that the infall of collisionless dark matter onto isolated galaxies produces a series of caustic rings in the halo dark matter distribution. The properties of these caustics are investigated. The density profile of the caustic…
The astronomical dark matter is an essential component of the Universe and yet its nature is still unresolved. It could be made of neutral and massive elementary particles which are their own antimatter partners. These dark matter species…
Cosmology and astroparticle physics give strongest possible evidence for the incompleteness of the Standard Model of particle physics. Leaving aside misterious dark energy, which may or may not be just the cosmological constant, two…
The formation of galaxies with warm dark matter is approximately adiabatic. The cold dark matter limit is singular and requires relaxation. In these lecture notes we develop, step-by-step, the physics of galaxies with warm dark matter, and…
If the cosmic dark matter consists of weakly-interacting massive particles, these particles should be produced in reactions at the next generation of high-energy accelerators. Measurements at these accelerators can then be used to determine…
We study particle decay as the origin of dark radiation. After elaborating general properties and useful parametrisations we provide model-independent and easy-to-use constraints from nucleosynthesis, the cosmic microwave background and…
Cold dark matter simulations appear to disagree with the observations on small distance scales. Here we consider a modified description of CDM particles which is implied by a new fundamental theory: In this picture, the dark matter is…
Several lines of evidence suggest that some of the dark matter may be non-baryonic: the non-detection of various plausible baryonic candidates for dark matter inferred, e.g., from galaxy rotation curves and from cluster of galaxy velocity…
Structure formation with cold dark matter (CDM) predicts halos with a central density cusp, which are observationally disfavored. If CDM particles have an annihilation cross section sigma*v ~ 10**(-29) (m/GeV) cm**2, then annihilations will…
As the first dark matter objects gravitationally condense, a density cusp forms immediately at every initial density maximum. Numerical simulations and theoretical arguments suggest that these prompt cusps can survive until the present day.…
Dark matter has been recognized as an essential part of matter for over 70 years now, and many suggestions have been made, what it could be. Most of these ideas have centered on Cold Dark Matter, particles that are expected in extensions of…
The evolution of dark matter in central areas of galaxies is considered (the Milky Way is taken as an example). It is driven by scattering off of dark matter particles by bulge stars, their absorption by the supermassive black hole and…
Cannibals are dark matter particles with a scattering process that allows three particles to annihilate to two. This exothermic process keeps the gas of the remaining particles warm long after they become non-relativistic. A cannibalizing…
Dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles is predicted to become gravitationally captured and accumulate in stars. While the subsequent annihilations of such particles lead to the injection of energy into stellar…
Dark matter, proposed decades ago as a speculative component of the universe, is now known to be the vital ingredient in the cosmos, eight times more abundant than ordinary matter, one quarter of the total energy density and the component…
The standard theoretical estimation of the thermal dark matter abundance may be significantly altered if properties of dark matter particles in the early universe and at the present cosmological epoch differ. This may happen if, e.g., a…
A short story of dark matter as an example of a scientific revolution is given. The characteristics of stellar populations are compared with those of dark halos. The mean mass-to-luminosity ratio of stellar populations is found to be 4 in…
The distribution of dark matter around galactic or cluster halos has usually been assumed to be approximately isothermal with a non-zero core radius, which is expected to be of the order of the size of the visible matter distribution.…