URL: https://physikseminar.desy.de/zeuthen/past_colloquia/colloquia_in_2012/april_4_2012/@@siteview
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Astrophysical probes of dark matter
Justin Read (ETH Zurich)
Seminar Room 3, 15.00h
In this talk, I discuss what we can learn about dark matter purely from its gravitational influence. I show how we can use computer simulations of structure formation to predict the distribution of dark matter in the Universe, and I discuss the remaining challenges to be overcome on small scales where baryonic physics has an important role to play. I then discuss the observed distribution of dark matter in the Universe from the tiniest dwarf galaxies up to galaxy clusters and the Universe as a whole. Comparing these observations with the simulations, I place constraints on dark matter models. Finally, I discuss the important role astrophysics has to play in direct and indirect particle dark matter searches. There, a knowledge - both theoretical and observational - of the dark matter distribution within our own Galaxy is key. I present a new measurement of the dark matter density near the Sun and I discuss the implications for direct search experiments.
