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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1993 Jun 1;90(11):4827–4834. doi: 10.1073/pnas.90.11.4827

Dark matter: theoretical perspectives.

M S Turner 1
PMCID: PMC46608  PMID: 11607395

Abstract

I both review and make the case for the current theoretical prejudice: a flat Universe whose dominant constituent is nonbaryonic dark matter, emphasizing that this is still a prejudice and not yet fact. The theoretical motivation for nonbaryonic dark matter is discussed in the context of current elementary-particle theory, stressing that (i) there are no dark-matter candidates within the "standard model" of particle physics, (ii) there are several compelling candidates within attractive extensions of the standard model of particle physics, and (iii) the motivation for these compelling candidates comes first and foremost from particle physics. The dark-matter problem is now a pressing issue in both cosmology and particle physics, and the detection of particle dark matter would provide evidence for "new physics." The compelling candidates are a very light axion (10(-6)-10(-4) eV), a light neutrino (20-90 eV), and a heavy neutralino (10 GeV-2 TeV). The production of these particles in the early Universe and the prospects for their detection are also discussed. I briefly mention more exotic possibilities for the dark matter, including a nonzero cosmological constant, superheavy magnetic monopoles, and decaying neutrinos.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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