Related papers: Probing ultralight dark fields in cosmological and…
Astronomical and cosmological observations of the past 80 years build solid evidence that atomic matter makes up only a small fraction of the matter in the universe. The dominant fraction does not interact with electromagnetic radiation,…
Modern cosmology successfully deals with the origin and the evolution of the Universe at large scales, but it is unable to completely answer the question about the nature of the fundamental objects that it is describing. As a matter of…
The nature of dark matter is one of the most pressing questions in particle physics. Yet all our present knowledge of the dark sector to date comes from its gravitational interactions with astrophysical systems. Moreover, astronomical…
The dark side of the universe is mysterious and its nature is still unknown. In fact, this poses perhaps as the biggest challenge in the modern cosmology. The two components of the dark sector (dark matter and dark energy) correspond today…
The majority of the matter in the universe is still unidentified and under investigation by both direct and indirect means. Many experiments searching for the recoil of dark-matter particles off target nuclei in underground laboratories…
Dark Matter is one of the most intriguing riddles of modern astrophysics. The Standard Cosmological Model implies that only 4.5% of the mass-energy of the Universe is baryonic matter and the remaining 95% is unknown. Of this remainder, 22%…
Ultralight dark matter is a hypothetical class of particle with a number of interesting theoretical and experimental properties, many of which are best understood by direct analogy with or application of undergraduate physics. We present a…
We outline a dynamical dark energy scenario whose signatures may be simultaneously tested by astronomical observations and laboratory experiments. The dark energy is a field with slightly sub-gravitational couplings to matter, a logarithmic…
From astronomical observations, we know that dark matter exists, makes up 23% of the mass budget of the Universe, clusters strongly to form the load-bearing frame of structure for galaxy formation, and hardly interacts with ordinary matter…
Ultralight dark matter refers to the lightest potential dark matter candidates. We will focus on the mass range that has been studied using astrophysical and cosmological observations, corresponding to a mass $10^{-24} \, \mathrm{eV}…
One of the major challenges of modern physics is to decipher the nature of dark matter. Astrophysical observations provide ample evidence for the existence of an invisible and dominant mass component in the observable universe, from the…
The dark matter problem is almost a century old. Since the 1930s evidence has been growing that our cosmos is dominated by a new form of non-baryonic matter, that holds galaxies and clusters together and influences cosmic structures up to…
Ordinary baryonic particles (such as protons and neutrons) account for only one-sixth of the total matter in the Universe. The remainder is a mysterious "dark matter" component, which does not interact via electromagnetism and thus neither…
Progress in observational cosmology over the past five years has established that the Universe is dominated dynamically by dark matter and dark energy. Both these new and apparently independent forms of matter-energy have properties that…
Dark matter is a fundamental constituent of the universe, which is needed to explain a wide variety of astrophysical and cosmological observations. Although the existence of dark matter was first postulated nearly a century ago and its…
Numerous observations point towards the existence of an unknown elementary particle with no electromagnetic interactions, a large population of which was presumably produced in the early stages of the history of the Universe. This so-called…
Existence of dark matter indicates the presence of unknown fundamental laws of nature. Ultralight axion-like particles are well-motivated dark matter candidates, emerging naturally from theories of physics at ultrahigh energies. We report…
Ultralight particles, with a mass below the electronvolt scale, exhibit wave-like behavior and have arisen as a compelling dark matter candidate. A particularly intriguing subclass is scalar dark matter, which induces variations in…
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…
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…