Related papers: The WIMP Paradigm: Theme and Variations
As experimental sensitivity increases, one is approaching the range of WIMP-nucleon interaction strengths characteristic of neutralinos. But this continuing progress also unearths new experimental challenges and uncertainties.
The Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are among the main candidates for the relic dark matter (DM). The idea of the direct DM detection relies on elastic in-dependent (SD) and spin-independent (SI) interaction of WIMPs with…
Dark matter is thought to make up most of the matter density of the Universe, yet its true nature remains uncertain. Among dark matter theories, Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are a prominent candidate for dark matter because…
Over the last years, new physics in terms of a novel weakly-interacting massive particle (WIMP) has come more and more under pressure from experimental null results. While the remaining WIMP parameter space will be probed by next generation…
Axions and other very weakly interacting slim particles (WISPs), with masses below 1 GeV, arise naturally in many extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. In particular, they could offer a new framework to explain the nature of…
A strongly interacting massive particle (SIMP) is an interesting candidate for dark matter (DM) because its self-interaction cross section can be naturally strong enough to address the astrophysical problem of small-scale structure…
Based on lectures given at the 2008 Theoretical Advanced Study Institute (TASI), I review here some aspects of the phenomenology of particle dark matter, including the process of thermal freeze-out in the early universe, and the direct and…
Searches for dark matter (DM) constituents are presently mainly focused on axions and WIMPs despite the fact that far higher mass constituents are viable. We discuss and dispute whether axions exist and those arguments for WIMPs which arise…
We propose a novel probe of weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter (DM) candidates of a wide mass range which fall short of the required annihilation rates to satisfy correct thermal relic abundance, dubbed as…
Direct detection of dark matter with directional sensitivity is a promising concept for improving the search for weakly interacting massive particles. With information on the direction of WIMP induced nuclear recoils one has access to the…
Feebly Interacting Massive Particles (FIMPs) are dark matter candidates that never thermalize in the early universe and whose production takes place via decays and/or scatterings of thermal bath particles. If FIMPs interactions with the…
Dark matter models can give rise to specific signatures at particle physics experiments or in cosmology. The details of the cosmological history can also influence the new physics signals to be expected at e.g. collider experiments. In…
The nature of dark matter remains one of the key science questions. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are among the best motivated particle physics candidates, allowing to explain the measured dark matter density by employing…
Neutron stars are attractive places to look for dark matter because their high densities allow repeated interactions. Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) may scatter efficiently in the core or in the crust of a neutron star. In…
The next decade will bring massive new data sets from experiments of the direct detection of weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter. The primary goal of these experiments is to identify and characterize the dark-matter…
The axion arises in well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics and is regarded as an alternative to the weakly interacting massive particle paradigm to explain the nature of dark matter. In this contribution, we…
We investigate the interactions of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) with nuclei in the human body. We are motivated by the fact that WIMPs are excellent candidates for the dark matter in the Universe. Our estimates use a 70 kg…
A weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) weighing only a few GeV has been invoked as an explanation for the signal from the DAMA/LIBRA experiment. We show that the data from DAMA/LIBRA are now powerful enough to strongly constrain the…
Well known scaling laws among the structural properties of the dark and the luminous matter in disc systems are too complex to be arisen by two inert components that just share the same gravitational field. This brings us to critically…
A brief overview is given about some issues in current astroparticle physics, focusing on the dark matter (DM) problem, where the connection to LHC physics is particularly strong. New data from the Planck satellite has made the evidence in…