Dark matter: Theory
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ark Matter: Theory1 N. Fornengo Department of Theoretical Physics, University of Torino and INFN/Torino, via P. Giuria 1, 10125 Torino, Italy email: [email protected], [email protected] Abstract—The particle physics interpretation of the dark matter problem, which is intimately of cosmologi cal and astrophysical nature, is going to be posed under deep scrutiny in the next years. From the particle physics side, accelerators like the LHC will deeply test theoretical ideas of new physics beyond the Standard Model, where particle candidates of dark matter are predicted to exist. From the astrophysical side, many probes are already providing a great deal of independent information on the foreseen signals which can be produced by the galactic or extragalactic dark matter. In all this, cosmology plays a central role in determin ing the relevance and the basic properties of the particle dark matter candidate. The ultimate hope is the emergence of dark matter signals and the rise of a coherent picture of new physics from and at the crossing of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. A very ambitious and farreaching project, which will bring to a deeper level our understanding of the fundamental laws which rule the Universe. DOI: 10.1134/S1063779611040058 1
1. INTRODUCTION
The presence of dark matter has been established on very different cosmological and astrophysical scales by a large number of experimental observations, most notably from the dynamics of galaxy clusters, from the flatness of the rotational curves of galaxies and from the observation of weak lensing phenomena, as well as by the theoretical understanding of structure forma tion. A significant amount of cold, collisionless and dissipationless dark matter is therefore needed in clustered systems: much more matter is present in these systems than luminous matter and sizably more than baryonic matter, as the comparison of the amount of dark matter in the Universe with the amount of baryons from primordial nucleosynthesis clearly shows. Nonbaryonic cold dark matter is therefore needed, and this fact poses challenges not only to Cos mology and Astrophysics, but to Fundamental Physics as well, since no viable Dark Matter (DM) candidate is present in the Standard Model of particle physics. Extensions like supersymmetric theories or theories of extradimensions typically accomodate succesfull DM candidates, like neutralinos or sneutrinos is Supersymmetry (SUSY) or KaluzaKlein (KK) exci tations in theories of extradimensions. These parti cles may be present in our current Universe and act as DM if they have been produced during the early phases of the evolution of the Universe and then remain as relics from that early stage. They obviously need to be stable on cosmological time scales and to be produced in the early Universe in the right amount to form the whole amount of DM we see today in cosmic 1 The article is published in the original.
structures. Even though these DM particles have very faint interaction with ordinary matter, hopefu
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