The Search for Dark Matter: Understanding Experimental Reach

Despite the overwhelming gravitational evidence for the existence of dark matter, conclusive detection presents substantial challenges and remains elusive. In this talk I will discuss the DARWIN experiment, and strategies for constraining dark matter at the LHC.

Over the next decade, several experiments will deeply probe the parameter space of well-motivated models, and have the potential to go beyond the discovery phase and reveal detailed information about the particle properties of dark matter. In particular, DARWIN will be the ultimate Xenon-based direct detection experiment, probing down to the fundamental neutrino background.

As supersymmetry continues to elude discovery at the LHC, it becomes increasingly important to ask what we can learn about dark matter in a model-independent way. Effective field theories have become popular as a way to achieve this, but at LHC energies it is crucial to understand their significance and limitations. I will discuss alternative approaches in novel search channels.