Dark Matter Searches

Astrophysical evidence suggests that dark matter comprises approximately 85% of all matter in the universe [1, 2], but even with such a high density, dark matter remains undefined. To determine the fundamental nature of dark matter, scientists have developed many experiments to detect dark matter over a large range of the possible masses dark matter can have. Current experiments can only cover a restricted energy range, with bounds on the upper and lower energy scales. To push our understanding further into lower-mass dark matter, new experiments are in development to detect interactions in the eV and sub-eV energy ranges (see Figure 1).

References:
[1] E.W. Kolb and M.S. Turner. The Early Universe, volume 69. 1990.
[2] N. Aghanim et al. Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 641:A6, September 2020.