Direct Dark Matter Search
Prof. Dr. Josef Jochum (Universität Tübingen)

Many observations in astronomy and cosmology point to the existence of Dark Matter. It is the largest fraction of matter and it composes 23% of the total energy content of the universe well above upper limits of what baryonic matter can contribute. New elementary particles are needed to explain the nature of Dark Matter. The identification of the nature of Dark Matter would not only answer an important question in cosmology, it contributes to physics beyond the standard model of particle physics. If for example supersymmetric particles exist, they can be detected by LHC in the coming years and are very likeley to contribute to Dark Matter.

Supersymmetric particles could be directly detected as component of the ambient Dark Matter by scattering on nuclei. Extremely low scattering rates can be expected and a detection will only be possible with powerful techniques to distinguish ambient background.

At present the most promising techniques are cryogenic detectors and liquid noble gas detectors. There has been large progress over the last years in improving the sensitivity for direct detection of Dark Matter particles and an increasing fraction of the parameter space for supersymmetric Dark Matter candidates is being explored. New larger scale experiments are being prepared with good chances to detect Dark Matter if it is connected to supersymmetry.