Abstract:
Dark matter and hidden sectors
There are a number of reasons to believe that our understanding of the fundamental laws of nature is incomplete. One of the best motivations is the puzzle of the identity of the dark matter of the universe. Over the years a wide variety of dark matter candidates has been put forward but the lack of signals in terrestrial experiments has cast doubt on some of the most studied possibilities. This has led theorists to broaden the range of dark matter candidates we consider. I’ll talk about classes of theories in which the dark matter resides in a ``hidden sector,’’ a potentially rich collection of particles and forces, weakly coupled to normal matter. I will also highlight other motivations for considering hidden sectors and ways to test for their existence.