Dark Matter Snowboard

An award-winning science journalist details the quest to isolate and understand dark matter―and shows how that search has helped us to understand the universe we inhabit.

The Fourth HEIDELBERG International Conference on Dark Matter in Astro­ and Particle Physics, DARK2002, was held in Cape Town, South Africa, in the period 4-9 February 2002. This majestic natural area was the site of the first conference of this series (hosted since 1996 in Heidelberg) to be held outside of Germany. Dark Matter has become one of the most exciting and central fields of as­ trophysics, particle physics and cosmology. The conference covered, as usual for this series, a large range of topics, theoretical and experimental. Topics included Astronomical Evidence for Dark Matter, the Cosmic Microwave Background, Supersymmetry, Inflation and Dark Energy, Structure Formation, Hot and Cold Dark Matter, and Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays all of which were represented by experts in the field. It was very nice to see again many of our 'old' friends in Dark Matter here in South Africa. The organizers were very glad to see, in addition to world experts, the new generation here. Many young participants gave very nice professional talks during the conference. We are grateful to John Ellis for doing an incredible job preparing his excellent summary talk during the sessions. Some special interest and intensive discussions were naturally raised by the first announcement of terrestrial evidence for hot dark matter, obtained from neutrino less double beta decay. This now adds to the evidence for cold dark matter which we have from DAM A for several years already, and which remained unchallenged up to now by other experiments.

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