Connecting Infinitesimal to Infinity: The Search for Dark Matter

At the very small scales the Standard Model of Elementary Particles explains the building blocks of the nature and their interactions. Although the model is very successful (e.g. prediction of Higgs Bosons recently discovered at CERN), it is incomplete! A new physics beyond the Standard Model is indeed required to explain some internal problems of this model.
On the other hand at the very large scales our observations of dynamics of galaxies, clusters of galaxies or the Universe as a whole do not match our expectations based on the luminous matter content of the Universe. A new form of matter that doesn't emit or interact with light i.e. dark matter is required to explain our observations.
I will speak about a new class of elementary particles a.k.a Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) to resolve inconsistencies in our understanding of the nature at both extreme large and small scales and how they are connected together. I will also explore the experimental efforts to detect these particles in terrestrial laboratories.

Speaker: Nader Mirabolfathi, UC Berkeley