Snowmass2021 Cosmic Frontier White Paper: Observational Facilities to Study Dark Matter

TL;DR

This white paper reviews upcoming observational facilities across multiple wavelengths and techniques that aim to advance our understanding of dark matter's fundamental nature through a comprehensive, multi-method approach.

Contribution

It provides an overview of future observational tools and their potential to uncover dark matter properties, integrating various observational strategies.

Findings

Multiple observational techniques will collectively improve dark matter constraints.

Upcoming facilities will also contribute to understanding dark energy, neutrinos, and inflation.

Multi-pronged observational approach is essential for dark matter research.

Abstract

We present an overview of future observational facilities that will significantly enhance our understanding of the fundamental nature of dark matter. These facilities span a range of observational techniques including optical/near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy, measurements of the cosmic microwave background, pulsar timing, 21-cm observations of neutral hydrogen at high redshift, and the measurement of gravitational waves. Such facilities are a critical component of a multi-pronged experimental program to uncover the nature of dark matter, while often providing complementary measurements of dark energy, neutrino physics, and inflation.