Previous Michelson Postdoctoral Prize Lectureships

The nature and properties of dark matter are one of the outstanding questions in cosmology. A well-motivated cold dark matter candidate is the lightest supersymmetric particle, the neutralino, whose properties however might remain underconstrained even if supersymmetry is discovered at the LHC in the next few years.

In this talk I will present results from the most complete analysis of the Constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (CMSSM) parameter space to date, showing that direct detection experiments have the potential to discover neutralino dark matter by the end of the decade if the CMSSM framework is correct. I will highlight the complementarity between direct dark matter searches, collider experiments (LHC, Tevatron) and indirect searches for annhilation signatures (gamma ray and antimatter fluxes) in the search for supersymmetric particles. I will make the case for the necessity of a convergent approach, combining astrophysical and collider probes, to the problem of dark matter.