2004/12/08 by Edward A. Baltz, Baltz, Edward A.
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0412170
14 pages, 4 figures. Lecture given at the 32nd SLAC Summer Institute
arxiv created 2004/12/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
It is now widely accepted that most of mass--energy in the universe is unobserved except by its gravitational effects. Baryons make only about 4% of the total, with "dark matter" making up about 23% and the "dark energy" responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe making up the remainder. We focus on the dark matter, which is the primary constituent of galaxies. We outline the observed properties of this material, enumerating some candidates covering 90 orders of magnitude in mass. Finally, we argue that the weak scale (100 GeV) is relevant to new physics, including the dark matter problem.