2005/04/19 by Gianfranco Bertone, GIANFRANCO BERTONE, David Merritt +1 · 1 citation
Computer Science · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Chemical and Physical Properties of Materials #Computational Physics and Python Applications #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1142/s0217732305017391
published as Mod.Phys.Lett.A20:1021,2005 · 17 pages. Invited review for Modern Physics Letters A
arxiv created 2005/04/19 · openalex publication_date 2005/05/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Non-baryonic, or "dark", matter is believed to be a major component of the total mass budget of the Universe. We review the candidates for particle dark matter and discuss the prospects for direct detection (via interaction of dark matter particles with laboratory detectors) and indirect detection (via observations of the products of dark matter self-annihilations), focusing in particular on the Galactic center, which is among the most promising targets for indirect detection studies. The gravitational potential at the Galactic center is dominated by stars and by the supermassive black hole, and the dark matter distribution is expected to evolve on sub-parsec scales due to interaction with these components. We discuss the dominant interaction mechanisms and show how they can be used to rule out certain extreme models for the dark matter distribution, thus increasing the information that can be gleaned from indirect detection searches.