Related papers: Astrophysical Constraints on Dark Matter
As cosmology has entered a phase of precision experiments, the content of the universe has been established to contain interesting and not yet fully understood components, namely dark energy and dark matter. While the cause and exact nature…
Our standard model of the Universe predicts the distribution of dark matter to $1\%$ at the scales needed for upcoming experiments, yet our predictions for how the luminous matter -- which has interactions besides gravity -- is distributed…
To the astrophysicist faced with the puzzle of dark matter, this one appears under two different aspects: on the one hand in cosmology, i.e. at very large scales, where it seems to be made of a bath of particles; on the other hand at the…
A huge amount of good quality data converges towards the picture of a spatially flat universe undergoing the today observed phase of accelerated expansion. This new observational trend is commonly addressed as Precision Cosmology. Despite…
Cosmological and astrophysical observations currently provide the only robust, positive evidence for dark matter. Cosmic probes of dark matter, which seek to determine the fundamental properties of dark matter through observations of the…
There is strong evidence for a large fraction of dark matter in the Universe. Some of the evidence and candidates for dark matter are reviewed. Dark matter in spiral galaxies may be in the form of cold dense clouds of molecular hydrogen.…
Cosmology is living through fascinating times, where new observations from ground and space telescopes are questioning the established paradigm, the so-called Lambda Cold Dark Matter model. The particle nature of Dark Matter is severely…
Dark energy in the universe is assumed to be vacuum energy. The energy-momentum of vacuum is described by a scale-dependent cosmological constant. The equations of motion imply for the density of matter (dust) the sum of the usual matter…
Two exotic elements have been introduced into the standard cosmological model: non-baryonic dark matter and dark energy. The success in converting a hypothesis into a solid theory depends strongly on whether we are able to solve the…
Astrophysical observations suggest that most of the matter in the cosmos consists of a new form that has not been observed on Earth. The nature and origin of this mysterious dark matter are among the most pressing questions in fundamental…
The fact that dark matter (DM), thus far, has revealed itself only on scales of galaxies and larger, again thrusts onto astrophysics the opportunity and the responsibility to confront the age old mystery "What is the nature of matter?" By…
I briefly review our current understanding of dark matter and dark energy. The first part of this paper focusses on issues pertaining to dark matter including observational evidence for its existence, current constraints and the `abundance…
Astronomical observations from small galaxies to the largest scales in the universe can be consistently explained by the simple idea of dark matter. The nature of dark matter is however still unknown. Empirically it cannot be any of the…
The cosmological observations coupled with theoretical calculations suggest the existence of enormous amount of unseen and unknown matter or dark matter in the universe. The evidence of their existence, the possible candidates and their…
Astrophysics and cosmology can be used to test the standard model of particle physics under conditions and over distance and time scales not accessible to laboratory experiments. Most of the astrophysical observations are in good agreement…
(Abridged) Present cosmological constraints and the absence of a direct detection and identification of any dark matter particle candidate leave room to the possibility that the dark sector of the Universe be actually more complex than it…
It is now, generally, believed that the presence of some form of dark matter is essential to explain the flat rotation curves of galaxies, and anomalous large velocities of galaxies in the clusters and superclusters. This dark matter turns…
A key prediction of the standard cosmological model -- which relies on the assumption that dark matter is cold, i.e. non-relativistic at the epoch of structure formation -- is the existence of a large number of dark matter substructures on…
For physicists, recent developments in astrophysics and cosmology present exciting challenges. We are conducting "experiments" in energy regimes some of which will be probed by accelerators in the near future, and others which are…
Although the cosmic concordance cosmology is quite successful in fitting data, fine tuning and coincidence problems apparently weaken it. We review several possibilities to ease its problems, by considering various kinds of dynamical Dark…