Dark Matter in Cosmology and Particle Physics

Abstract: The existence of dark matter is very well-established observational. Despite the effort that has been dedicated, both at the theoretical/phenomenological and at the experimental level, in order to detect it through its potential non-gravitational interactions, its microscopic nature remains unknown. In these two lectures, I will first present a brief overview of the evidence that corroborates its existence, I will discuss different ideas about what types of particles could constitute viable "dark matter candidates" and I will delineate different promising strategies in order to detect it non-gravitationally. Afterward, I will focus mostly on scenarios in which dark matter interacts extremely weekly ("feebly") with the Standard Model particles. I will discuss some types of models that could contain such Feebly Interacting dark matter candidates and I will highlight some of the exiting phenomenology that they predict in particle and astroparticle physics experiments.

general relativity and quantum cosmologyHEP - latticeHEP - phenomenologyHEP - theorymathematical physics

Audience: researchers in the topic

High Energy Theory, Gravity and Cosmology Seminars @ NTUA