Related papers: Dark Matter and its Particle Candidates
Neutralinos are natural candidates for cold dark matter in many realizations of supersymmetry. We briefly review our recent results in the evaluation of neutralino relic abundance and direct detection rates in a class of supergravity…
Numerous lines of evidence indicate that the matter content of the Universe is dominated by some unseen component. Determining the nature of this Dark Matter is one of the most important problems in cosmology. Weakly Interacting Massive…
Relic neutralinos produced after the Big Bang are favoured candidates for Dark Matter. They can accumulate at the centre of massive celestial objects like our Sun. Their annihilation can result in a high-energy neutrino flux that could be…
Cosmological and astrophysical measurements indicate that the universe contains a large amount of dark matter. A number of weak scale dark matter candidates have been proposed in extensions of the standard model. The potential to discover…
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…
The nature of the main constituents of the mass of the universe is one of the outstanding riddles of cosmology and astro-particle physics. Current models explaining the evolution of the universe, and measurements of the various components…
It is now widely accepted that most of mass--energy in the universe is unobserved except by its gravitational effects. Baryons make only about 4% of the total, with "dark matter" making up about 23% and the "dark energy" responsible for the…
There are six main things which any non-baryonic dark matter theory should endeavour to explain: (1) The basic dark matter particle properties [mass, stability, darkness]; (2) The similarity in cosmic abundance between ordinary and…
Dark matter is a vital component of the current best model of our universe, $\Lambda$CDM. There are leading candidates for what the dark matter could be (e.g. weakly-interacting massive particles, or axions), but no compelling observational…
For the first time, we have a plausible and complete accounting of matter and energy in the Universe. Expressed a fraction of the critical density it goes like this: neutrinos, between 0.3% and 15%; stars, between 0.3% and 0.6%; baryons…
In supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model, the lightest neutralino, the gravitino, and the axino can appear as the lightest supersymmetric particle and as such provide a compelling explanation of the non-baryonic dark matter in our…
In these brief lecture notes, we introduce sterile neutrinos as dark matter candidates. We discuss in particular their production via oscillations, their radiative decay, as well as possible observational signatures and constraints.
We review theoretically well-motivated dark-matter candidates, and pathways to their discovery, in the light of recent results from collider physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. Taken in aggregate, these encourage broader thinking in…
The observational evidence for dark matter on progressively larger cosmic scales is reviewed in a rather pedagogical fashion. Although the emphasis is on dark matter in galaxies and in clusters of galaxies, its cosmological evidence as well…
The nonbaryonic dark matter of the Universe is assumed to consist of new stable forms of matter. Their stability reflects symmetry of micro world and particle candidates for cosmological dark matter are the lightest particles that bear new…
Dark matter candidates arising in models of particle physics incorporating weak scale supersymmetry may produce detectable signals through their annihilation into neutrinos, photons, or positrons. A large number of relevant experiments are…
The best particle candidates for non--baryonic cold dark matter are reviewed, namely, neutralino, axion, axino and Majoron. These particles are considered in the context of cosmological models with the restrictions given by the observed…
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 the electromagnetic force and thus…
I will begin by reviewing the evidence for Dark Matter in the Universe, as well as the candidates for dark matter. At most 20% of the dark matter in galaxies can be in the form of MACHOs (Massive Compact Halo Objects); the remainder appears…
Under the hypothesis that the MSSM neutralino accounts for the observed dark matter density, we investigate how light this particle is still allowed to be after the latest LHC data. In particular, we discuss the impact of searches for…