Search for dark matter at colliders

Abstract

Multiple astrophysical and cosmological observations show that the majority of the matter in the universe is non-luminous. It is not made of known particles, and it is called dark matter. This is one of the few pieces of concrete experimental evidence of new physics beyond the Standard Model. Despite decades of effort, we still know very little about the identity of dark matter; it remains one of the biggest outstanding mysteries facing particle physics. Among the numerous proposals to explain its nature, the Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) scenario stands out. The WIMP scenario is based on a simple assumption that dark matter is in thermal equilibrium in the early hot universe, and that the dark matter particles have mass and interactions not too different from the massive particles in the Standard Model. Testing the WIMP hypothesis is a focus for many experimental searches. A variety of techniques are employed including the observation of WIMP annihilation, the measurement of WIMP-nucleon scattering in terrestrial detectors, and the inference of WIMP production at high energy colliders. In this article, we will focus on the last approach, and in particular on WIMP dark matter searches at the Large Hadron Collider. Authors note: this paper (and references therein) correspond to the version that was submitted to the joint issue of Nature Physics and Nature Astronomy in January 2017.