Dark Matter A Primer.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Astronomy Volume 2011, Article ID 968283, 22 pages doi:10.1155/2011/968283 Review Article Dark Matter: A Primer ¯ Katherine Garrett and Gintaras Duda Department of Physics, Creighton University, 2500 California Plaza, Omaha, NE 68178, USA ¯ Correspondence should be addressed to Gintaras Duda, gkduda@ Received 12 June 2010; Accepted 28 September 2010 Academic Editor: David Merritt ¯ Copyright © 2011 K. Garrett and G. Duda. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Dark matter is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in cosmology at the present time. About 80% of the Universe’s gravitating matter is nonluminous, and its nature and distribution are for the most part unknown. In this paper, we will outline the history, astrophysical evidence, candidates, and detection methods of dark matter, with the goal to give the reader an accessible but rigorous introduction to the puzzle of dark matter. This paper targets advanced students and researchers new to the field of dark matter, and includes an extensive list of references for further study. 1. Introduction This paper aims to give a general overview of the subject of dark matter suitable for nonexperts; we hope to treat this One of the most astounding revelations of the twentieth fascinating and impo