Darmstadt 2008 – scientific programme

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 32: Hauptvorträge

HK 32.2: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 13, 2008, 09:00–09:30, 1A

Direct Dark Matter Search — •Josef Jochum — Kepler Center for Astro and Particle Physics, Universität Tübingen

Many observations in astronomy and cosmology point to the existence of so called Dark Matter. Dark Matter is the largest fraction of matter and it composes 23% of the total energy content of the universe. The upper limits on the contribution of baryonic matter to the energy content of the universe are well below the content of Dark Matter, why new elementary particles are needed to explain the nature of Dark Matter. The identification of the nature of Dark Matter would not only answer an important question in cosmology, it as well contributes to physics beyond the standard model of particle physics. If for examply supersymmetric particles exist, they are very likeley to contribute to Dark Matter. Supersymmetric candidates for Dark Matter particles could be directly detected by scattering on nuclei. Extremely low scattering rates can be expected and a detection will only be possible with powerful techniques to distinguish ambient background. At present the most promising techniques are cryogenic detectors and liquid noble gas detectors. There has been large progress over the last years in improving the sensitivity for direct detection of Dark Matter particles and an increasing fraction of the parameter space for supersymmetric Dark Matter candidates is being explored. New larger scale experiments are being prepared with good chances to detect Dark Matter if it is connected to supersymmetry.