Dark Matter: A Primer

Abstract

Dark matter is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in cosmology at the present time. About 80% of the universe's gravitating matter is non-luminous, and its nature and distribution are for the most part unknown. In this paper, we will outline the history, astrophysical evidence, candidates, and detection methods of dark matter, with the goal to give the reader an accessible but rigorous introduction to the puzzle of dark matter. This review targets advanced students and researchers new to the field of dark matter, and includes an extensive list of references for further study.

26 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (15)

• A direct empirical proof of the existence of dark matter
• Observation of an anomalous positron abundance in the cosmic radiation
• Limits on the Macho Content of the Galactic Halo from the EROS-2 Survey of the Magellanic Clouds
• Measurement of the Cosmic Ray e+ plus e- spectrum from 20 GeV to 1 TeV with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• Direct cosmological simulations of the growth of black holes and galaxies
• Dark Matter and Collider Phenomenology of Universal Extra Dimensions
• Revealing the properties of dark matter in the merging cluster MACSJ0025.4-1222
• A galaxy at a redshift z = 6.96
• A High Resolution Search for Dark-Matter Axions
• Results from the First Science Run of the ZEPLIN-III Dark Matter Search Experiment
• Discovery of a Ringlike Dark Matter Structure in the Core of the Galaxy Cluster Cl 0024+17
• Confrontation of MOND with the rotation curves of early-type disc galaxies
• Hubble Space Telescope survey of the Perseus Cluster - I: The structure and dark matter content of cluster dwarf spheroidals
• Is the dark matter interpretation of the EGRET gamma excess compatible with antiproton measurements?
• The CRESST-II Experiment