The cosmic cocktail: three parts dark matter

Abstract

Preface ix 1 The Golden Era of Particle Cosmology, or How I Joined the Chicago Mafia 1 New York City Fermilab: The Atom Smasher in the Prairie Chicago: A New Zeitgeist in Cosmology Dunkle Materie: The Dark Enigma WIMPs at Harvard 2 How Do Cosmologists Know Dark Matter Exists? The Beginning of the Dark Matter Story 9 What Do Galaxies Look Like? Observational Evidence for Dark Matter Formation of Galaxies and Clusters Dark Matter Dominates 3 The Big Picture of the Universe: Einstein and the Big Bang 35 Geometry of the Universe Cosmic Microwave Background Outer Space and the Queen of Sweden Pie Picture of the Universe 4 Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Proves That Atomic Matter Constitutes Only 5% of the Universe 67 A Story about Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Particles in the Early Universe: A Primordial Soup Origins of the Elements Atoms Make Up Only 5% of the Universe 5 What Is Dark Matter? 83 Rocks or Dust Matter and Antimatter Neutrinos MACHOs Black Holes The Particle Zoo The WIMP Miracle WIMPs in the Human Body and a Tennis Match 6 The Discovery of the Higgs Boson 108 Atom Smashers: The Large Hadron Collider CERN Discovery of the Higgs 7 The Experimental Hunt for Dark Matter Particles 123 The Three Prongs of the Hunt for Dark Matter Dark Matter at the Atom Smasher at CERN: Missing Energy plus Jets What Has CERN Done for Society? Will the LHC Bring Doomsday? Direct Detection: Abandoned Mines, Alpine Tunnels, and Nightclubs in Jerusalem Indirect Detection: Annihilations in Space and at the South Pole 8 Claims of Detection: Are They Real? 147 Direct Detection in Underground Laboratories Indirect Detection of WIMP Annihilation: Positrons, Neutrinos, and Gamma Rays The Future of Dark Matter Experiments 9 Dark Energy and the Fate of the Universe 183 Rounding Out the Universe: Type IA Supernovae and Dark Energy The Future of the Universe Epicycles Epilogue Afterword: Dark Stars 215 Acknowledgments 219 Notes 221 Suggestions for Further Reading 233 Index 235