Vera Gluscevic (UCLA)

10:00am Wednesday Apr 13, 2022
Webinar

Probing dark matter mass and interactions: from the early universe to near-field cosmology

Dark matter constitutes 85% of the matter content in the Universe, but its physical nature remains unknown and requires new physics to explain. I will review the status of the recent early-universe and late-universe searches for the identity of dark matter, summarizing the best current limits on scattering between dark matter and baryons, and discussing cosmological limits on the mass of thermal-relic dark matter. I will highlight the interplay between the thermal history of the universe and the formation of structure as complementary probes of dark matter physics, using the example of the 21-cm signal from the Cosmic Dawn. Finally, I will discuss the prospects for unveiling the physics of dark matter in the coming decade.