Dark matter from extra dimensions

Abstract

In brane-world models with low tension, massive branons are natural candidates for dark matter. The phenomenology of these WIMP-like particles is completely determined by their mass, the brane tension and, in the case of effects due to radiative corrections, by the cutoff setting the scale of validity of the branon effective theory. In this paper, we review the main constraints on branon physics coming from colliders, astrophysics and cosmological observations, and include more recent limits obtained from electroweak precision measurements.

5 pages, 4 figures. To appear in the proceedings of 22nd Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, Stanford University, December 13-17, 2004