A New Era in the Quest for Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current challenges in dark matter research, emphasizing the need to diversify experimental approaches including astronomical and gravitational wave observations to advance understanding.

Contribution

It advocates for a diversified strategy in dark matter searches, integrating astronomical surveys and gravitational wave data, to overcome current experimental limitations.

Findings

Past experiments have not confirmed popular dark matter candidates.

Diversifying experimental methods is crucial for future progress.

Astronomical and gravitational wave observations can provide new insights.

Abstract

There is a growing sense of `crisis' in the dark matter community, due to the absence of evidence for the most popular candidates such as weakly interacting massive particles, axions, and sterile neutrinos, despite the enormous effort that has gone into searching for these particles. Here, we discuss what we have learned about the nature of dark matter from past experiments, and the implications for planned dark matter searches in the next decade. We argue that diversifying the experimental effort, incorporating astronomical surveys and gravitational wave observations, is our best hope to make progress on the dark matter problem.