Related papers: Dark Matter: Introduction
Observations show that about the 20% of the Universe is composed by invisible (dark) matter (DM), for which many candidates have been proposed. In particular, the anomalous behavior of rotational curves of galaxies (i.e. the flattening at…
Constantly accumulating observational data continue to confirm that about 70% of the energy density today consists of dark energy responsible for the accelerated expansion of the Universe. We present recent observational bounds on dark…
More than 90% of matter in the Universe could be composed of heavy particles, which were non-relativistic, or 'cold', when they froze-out from the primordial soup. I will review current searches for these hypothetical particles, both via…
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 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…
The astronomical dark matter is an essential component of the Universe and yet its nature is still unresolved. It could be made of neutral and massive elementary particles which are their own antimatter partners. These dark matter species…
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…
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…
Our world is wonderful because of the normal but negligibly small baryonic part (i.e., atoms) although unknown dark matter and dark energy dominate the Universe. A stable atomic nucleus could be simply termed as ``strong matter'' since its…
Dark matter (DM) is a new type of invisible matter introduced to explain various features of recent astrophysical observations, including galaxy rotation curves and other fundamental characteristics of our universe. DM may couple to…
The ubiquitous presence of dark matter in the universe is today a central tenet in modern cosmology and astrophysics. Ranging from the smallest galaxies to the observable universe, the evidence for dark matter is compelling in dwarfs,…
Over the past three years we have determined the basic features of the Universe -- spatially flat; accelerating; comprised of 1/3 a new form of matter, 2/3 a new form of energy, with some ordinary matter and a dash of massive neutrinos; and…
Recent cosmological and astrophysical observations point out that the Universe is in accelerating expansion and filled up with non-luminous matter. In order to explain the observed large scale structures and this accelerating behavior one…
Mankind has not yet explained dark matter, the accelerating expansion of the Universe, the 'knee' and 'ankle' of the cosmic ray energy spectrum graph, the low star formation rates of low surface brightness (LSB) dwarf galaxies, the ignition…
The evidence is that the mass of the universe is dominated by an exotic nonbaryonic form of matter largely draped around the galaxies. It approximates an initially low pressure gas of particles that interact only with gravity, but we know…
The discrepancy between dynamical mass measures of objects such as galaxies and the observed distribution of luminous matter in the universe is typically explained by invoking an unseen ``dark matter'' component. Dark matter must…
A six parameter cosmological model, involving a vacuum energy density that is extremely tiny compared to fundamental particle physics scales, describes a large body of increasingly accurate astronomical data. In a first part of this brief…
The most recent observations by the WMAP satellite provided us with data of unprecedented accuracy regarding the parameters describing the Standard Cosmological Model. The current matter-energy density of the Universe is close to its…
Dark energy and dark matter constitute 95% of the observable Universe. Yet the physical nature of these two phenomena remains a mystery. Einstein suggested a long-forgotten solution: gravitationally repulsive negative masses, which drive…
This paper reviews statistical methods recently developed to reconstruct and analyze dark matter mass maps from weak lensing observations. The field of weak lensing is motivated by the observations made in the last decades showing that the…