Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current understanding of dark matter, emphasizing astronomical discoveries and the status of direct and indirect detection efforts for non-luminous, non-baryonic, cold dark matter particles.

Contribution

It provides an overview of recent astronomical findings and summarizes the latest experimental searches for cold dark matter particles.

Findings

Astronomical observations support the existence of non-baryonic dark matter.

Current detection experiments have set new constraints on dark matter particle properties.

The paper highlights ongoing challenges and future prospects in dark matter research.

Abstract

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 of its mass, all have in common that an appreciable contribution to that mass is non-luminous and non-baryonic, and that a large fraction of this so-called dark matter must be in the form of non-relativistic massive particles (Cold Dark Matter: CDM). In the spirit of the Lake Louise Winter Institute Lectures we take a look at the latest astronomical discoveries and report on the status of direct and indirect Dark Matter searches.