All Outputs (23)

Primordial black holes as a dark matter candidate - a brief overview (2024)
Journal Article

Historically the most popular dark matter candidates have been new elementary particles, such as Weakly Interacting Massive Particles and axions. However Primordial Black Holes (PBHs), black holes formed from overdensities in the early Universe, are... Read More about Primordial black holes as a dark matter candidate - a brief overview.

Primordial black holes and stochastic inflation beyond slow roll. Part I. Noise matrix elements (2023)
Journal Article

Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) may form in the early Universe, from the grav-itational collapse of large density perturbations, generated by large quantum fluctuations during inflation. Since PBHs form from rare over-densities, their abundance is sens... Read More about Primordial black holes and stochastic inflation beyond slow roll. Part I. Noise matrix elements.

Modelling uncertainties in wide binary constraints on primordial black holes (2023)
Journal Article

Dark matter in the form of compact objects with mass Mco ≳ 10 M⊙ can be constrained by its dynamical effects on wide binary stars. Motivated by the recent interest in primordial black hole dark matter, we revisit the theoretical modelling involved in... Read More about Modelling uncertainties in wide binary constraints on primordial black holes.

Effect of clustering on primordial black hole microlensing constraints (2022)
Journal Article

Stellar microlensing observations tightly constrain compact object dark matter in the mass range (10-11-103)M ⊙. Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) form clusters, and it has been argued that these microlensing constraints are consequently weakened or evad... Read More about Effect of clustering on primordial black hole microlensing constraints.

Direct detection of dark matter - APPEC committee report (2022)
Journal Article

This report provides an extensive review of the experimental programme of direct detection searches of particle dark matter. It focuses mostly on European efforts, both current and planned, but does it within a broader context of a worldwide activity... Read More about Direct detection of dark matter - APPEC committee report.

Dark matter in astrophysics/cosmology (2022)
Journal Article

These lecture notes aim to provide an introduction to dark matter from the perspective of astrophysics/cosmology. We start with a rapid overview of cosmology, including the evolution of the Universe, its thermal history and structure formation. Then... Read More about Dark matter in astrophysics/cosmology.

Primordial Black Holes as a dark matter candidate (2020)
Journal Article

The detection of gravitational waves from mergers of tens of Solar mass black hole binaries has led to a surge in interest in Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) as a dark matter candidate. We aim to provide a (relatively) concise overview of the status of... Read More about Primordial Black Holes as a dark matter candidate.

Constraints on the cosmic string loop collapse fraction from primordial black holes (2020)
Journal Article

A small fraction, f , of cosmic string loops can collapse to form Primordial Black Holes (PBHs). Constraints on the abundance of PBHs can therefore be used to constrain f. We update these calculations, taking into account the PBH extended mass functi... Read More about Constraints on the cosmic string loop collapse fraction from primordial black holes.

Understanding the suppression of structure formation from dark matter-dark energy momentum coupling (2020)
Journal Article

Models in which scalar field dark energy interacts with dark matter via a pure momentum coupling have previously been found to potentially ease the structure formation tension between early-and late-universe observations. In this article we explore t... Read More about Understanding the suppression of structure formation from dark matter-dark energy momentum coupling.

Early dark energy constraints on growing neutrino quintessence cosmologies (2019)
Journal Article

We investigate cosmological models in which dynamical dark energy consists of a scalar field whose present-day value is controlled by a coupling to the neutrino sector. The behavior of the scalar field depends on three functions: a kinetic function,... Read More about Early dark energy constraints on growing neutrino quintessence cosmologies.

Pitfalls of a power-law parametrization of the primordial power spectrum for primordial black hole formation (2018)
Journal Article

Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) can form in the radiation dominated early Universe from the collapse of large density perturbations produced by inflation. A power-law parameterisation of the primordial power spectrum is often used to extrapolate from c... Read More about Pitfalls of a power-law parametrization of the primordial power spectrum for primordial black hole formation.

Time-integrated directional detection of dark matter (2017)
Journal Article

The analysis of signals in directional dark matter (DM) detectors typically assumes that the directions of nuclear recoils can be measured in the Galactic rest frame. However, this is not possible with all directional detection technologies. In nucle... Read More about Time-integrated directional detection of dark matter.

Astrophysical uncertainties on stellar microlensing constraints on multi-solar mass primordial black hole dark matter (2017)
Journal Article

There has recently been interest in multi-Solar mass Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) as a dark matter (DM) candidate. There are various microlensing, dynamical and accretion constraints on the abundance of PBHs in this mass range. Taken at face value t... Read More about Astrophysical uncertainties on stellar microlensing constraints on multi-solar mass primordial black hole dark matter.

Astrophysical uncertainties on the local dark matter distribution and direct detection experiments (2017)
Journal Article

The differential event rate in weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) direct detection experiments depends on the local dark matter density and velocity distribution. Accurate modelling of the local dark matter distribution is therefore required... Read More about Astrophysical uncertainties on the local dark matter distribution and direct detection experiments.

Axion astronomy with microwave cavity experiments (2017)
Journal Article

Terrestrial searches for the conversion of dark matter axions or axion-like particles into photons inside magnetic fields are sensitive to the phase space structure of the local Milky Way halo. We simulate signals in a hypothetical future experiment... Read More about Axion astronomy with microwave cavity experiments.

Microlensing and dynamical constraints on primordial black hole dark matter with an extended mass function (2016)
Journal Article

The recent discovery of gravitational waves from mergers of ?10 M? black hole binaries has stimulated interested in primordial black hole (PBH) dark matter in this mass range. Microlensing and dynamical constraints exclude all of the dark matter in c... Read More about Microlensing and dynamical constraints on primordial black hole dark matter with an extended mass function.

How to calculate dark matter direct detection exclusion limits that are consistent with gamma rays from annihilation in the Milky Way halo (2016)
Journal Article

When comparing constraints on the weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) properties from direct and indirect detection experiments it is crucial that the assumptions made about the dark matter (DM) distribution are realistic and consistent. For i... Read More about How to calculate dark matter direct detection exclusion limits that are consistent with gamma rays from annihilation in the Milky Way halo.

A review of the discovery reach of directional Dark Matter detection (2016)
Journal Article

Cosmological observations indicate that most of the matter in the Universe is Dark Matter. Dark Matter in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) can be detected directly, via its elastic scattering off target nuclei. Most current di... Read More about A review of the discovery reach of directional Dark Matter detection.

Readout strategies for directional dark matter detection beyond the neutrino background (2015)
Journal Article

© 2015 American Physical Society. The search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) by direct detection faces an encroaching background due to coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering. As the sensitivity of these experiments improves, the quest... Read More about Readout strategies for directional dark matter detection beyond the neutrino background.

WIMP particle physics and astrophysics with direct detection and neutrino telescope data (2015)
Journal Article

With positive signals from multiple direct detection experiments it will, in principle, be possi- ble to measure the mass and cross sections of weakly-interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter. Recent work has shown that, with a polynomial para... Read More about WIMP particle physics and astrophysics with direct detection and neutrino telescope data.