Related papers: The COSMIC WISPers White Paper: The physics case f…
Axions and other very weakly interacting slim (with $m <$ 1 GeV) particles (WISPs) are a common feature of several extensions of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. The search of WISPs was already recommended in the last update of the…
Axions and other very weakly interacting slim particles (WISPs) may be non-thermally produced in the early universe and survive as constituents of the dark universe. We describe their theoretical motivation and their phenomenology. A huge…
Physics beyond the Standard Model naturally gives rise to very light and weakly interacting particles, dubbed WISPs (Weakly Interacting Slim Particles). A prime example is the axion, that has eluded experimental detection for more than…
Light cold dark matter consisting of weakly interacting slim (or sub-eV) particles (WISPs) has been in the focus of a large number of studies made over the past two decades. The QCD axion and axion-like particles with masses in the…
This document is based on lectures delivered at a recent COSMIC WISPers COST Action training school in Annecy in September 2025. They examine detection of weakly interacting slim particles (WISPs), specifically axions and high-frequency…
We present some bottom-up motivations of axions and other weakly interacting sub-eV particles (WISPs) coupling to photons. Typically, these light particles are strongly constrained by their production or interaction in astrophysical and…
Very weakly interacting slim particles (WISPs), such as axion-like particles (ALPs) or hidden photons (HPs), may be non-thermally produced via the misalignment mechanism in the early universe and survive as a cold dark matter population…
The search for dark matter is of fundamental importance to our understanding of the universe. Weakly-Interacting Slim Particles (WISPs) such as axions and hidden sector photons (HSPs) are well motivated candidates for the dark matter. Some…
Light WIMPs are dark matter particle candidates with weak scale interaction with the known particles, and mass in the GeV to 10's of GeV range. Hints of light WIMPs have appeared in several dark matter searches in the last decade. The…
Many weakly interacting sub-electronVolt particles (WISPs) are easily accommodated in extensions of the standard model. Generally the strongest bounds on their existence come from stellar evolution and cosmology, where to the best of our…
The recent WMAP data have confirmed that exotic dark matter together with the vacuum energy (cosmological constant) dominate in the flat Universe. The nature of the dark matter constituents cannot be determined till they are directly…
Light-shining-through-walls experiments are the search experiments for weakly interacting slim particles (WISPs) with the smallest model dependence. They have the advantage that not only the detection, but also the production of the WISPs…
An ever-increasing body of evidence suggests that weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) constitute the bulk of the matter in the Universe. We illustrate how experimental data, dimensional analysis and Standard Model particle physics…
Weakly interactive slim particles (WISPs), including the QCD axion, axion-like particles (ALPs), and hidden photons, are considered to be strong candidates for the dark matter carrier particle. The microwave cavity experiment WISPDMX is the…
Dark matter made from non-thermally produced bosons can have very low, possibly sub-eV masses. Axions and hidden photons are prominent examples of such "dark" very weakly interacting light (slim) particles (WISPs). A suitable mechanism for…
We present an overview over the current status of laboratory experiments searching for (very) weakly coupled slim particles (WISPs). These experiments at the high precision frontier explore new physics beyond the standard model in a…
This article gives an overview on the status of experimental searches for dark matter at the end of 2014. The main focus is on direct searches for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) using underground-based low-background…
For many working in particle physics and cosmology successful discovery and characterisation of the new particles that most likely explain the non-baryonic cold dark matter, known to comprise the majority of matter in the Universe, would be…
Dark matter may consist of light, very weakly interacting bosons, produced non-thermally in the early Universe. Prominent examples of such very weakly interacting slim particles (WISPs) are axions and hidden photons. Direct detection…
The cold dark matter of the Universe may be comprised of very light and very weakly interacting particles, so-called WISPs. Two prominent examples are hidden photons and axion-like particles. In this note we propose a new technique to…