Related papers: Dark Matter in Astrophysics/Cosmology
Answering well-known fundamental questions is usually regarded as the major goal of science. Discovery of other unknown and fundamental questions is, however, even more important. Recognition that "we didn't know anything" is the basic…
The current standard model of cosmology assumes that the majority of matter in the Universe is made of dark matter, and that the latter is fundamentally different from ordinary matter. Dark matter can in principle explain the rotation of…
Dark matter interactions with electrons or protons during the early Universe leave imprints on the cosmic microwave background and the matter power spectrum, and can be probed through cosmological and astrophysical observations. These…
Rotation curve measurements provided the first strong indication that a significant fraction of matter in the Universe is non-baryonic. Since then, a tremendous amount of progress has been made on both the theoretical and experimental…
Exploring dark matter via observations of extreme astrophysical environments -- defined here as heavy compact objects such as white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes, as well as supernovae and compact object merger events -- has been a…
I review two different connections between particle theory and early-Universe cosmology: (1) Cosmic-microwave-background (CMB) tests of inflation and (2) particle dark matter. The inflationary predictions of a flat Universe and a nearly…
We review the current status of cosmological parameters, dark energy and large-scale structure, from a theoretical and observational perspective. We first present the basic cosmological parameters and discuss how they are measured with…
In the past years a wealth of observations has unraveled the structural properties of dark and luminous mass distribution in galaxies, a benchmark for understanding dark matter and the process of galaxy formation. The study of the…
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…
In an introductory manner, the nature of dark energy is addressed, how it is observed and what further tests are needed to reconstruct its properties. Several theoretical approaches to dark energy will be discussed. Finally, the dark…
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…
The consideration of dark energy's quanta, required also by thermodynamics, introduces its chemical potential into the cosmological equations. Isolating its main contribution, we obtain solutions with dark energy decaying to matter or…
Small-scale clumps of dark matter are gravitationally bounded structures that have masses comparable to or lower than stellar masses and consist of noninteracting or weakly interacting dark matter particles. In this paper, the current…
The discovery of universe's late-time acceleration and dark energy has overseen a great deal of research into cosmological singularities and in this brief review, we discuss all the prominent developments in this field for the best part of…
Studying our Galaxy, the Milky Way (MW), gives us a close-up view of the interplay between cosmology, dark matter, and galaxy formation. In the next decade our understanding of the MW's dynamics, stellar populations, and structure will…
This whitepaper focuses on the astrophysical systematics which are encountered in dark matter searches. Oftentimes in indirect and also in direct dark matter searches, astrophysical systematics are a major limiting factor to sensitivity to…
In these lectures the present status of the so-called standard cosmological model, based on the hot Big Bang theory and the inflationary paradigm is reviewed. Special emphasis is given to the origin of the cosmological perturbations we see…
The nature of dark matter is still unknown and one of the most fundamental scientific mysteries. Although successfully describing large scales, the standard cold dark matter model (CDM) exhibits possible shortcomings on galactic and…
We review how dark matter is distributed in our local neighbourhood from an observational and theoretical perspective. We will start by describing first the dark matter halo of our own galaxy and in the Local Group. Then we proceed to…
The identity of dark matter is one of the key outstanding problems in both particle and astrophysics. In this thesis, I describe a number of complementary searches for particle dark matter. I discuss how the impact of dark matter on stars…