Dark Matter direct detection of classical WIMPs

Abstract

One of the highest priorities in particle physics today is the identification of the constituents of dark matter. This manuscript is a supplement to pedagogical lectures given at the 2021 Les Houches Summer School on Dark Matter. The lectures cover topics related to the direct detection of Weakly Interaction Massive Particle (WIMP) dark matter, including the distribution of dark matter, nuclear scattering, backgrounds, planning and designing of experiments, and a sampling of planned and ongoing experiments.

Boosted dark matter from Centaurus A and its detection

“…With enormous cosmological and astrophysical observations suggesting the existence of dark matter (DM), the nature of DM remains a mystery [1][2][3]. DM in the form of exotic particles is well motivated by theories, notably the Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) paradigm, which predicts DM particles with mass and coupling strength similar to the electroweak sector of the Standard Model (SM).…”

Impact of dark matter spikes on the merger rates of Primordial Black Holes

“…In principle, spikes around the PBHs can be formed by any particle-like DM. However, gamma ray observations exclude this possibility if DM particles have a large annihilation cross section, as in the case of classical WIMPs [42][43][44][45][46][47][48]. We therefore consider the scenario in which the dominant particle DM is not WIMP-like or is WIMP-like with a very small annihilation cross section [45,47].…”