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Concept
Weakly interacting massive particle
Summary
Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are hypothetical particles that are one of the proposed candidates for dark matter.
There exists no formal definition of a WIMP, but broadly, it is a new elementary particle which interacts via gravity and any other force (or forces), potentially not part of the Standard Model itself, which is as weak as or weaker than the weak nuclear force, but also non-vanishing in its strength. Many WIMP candidates are expected to have been produced thermally in the early Universe, similarly to the particles of the Standard Model according to Big Bang cosmology, and usually will constitute cold dark matter.
Obtaining the correct abundance of dark matter today via thermal production requires a self-annihilation cross section of , which is roughly what is expected for a new particle in the 100 GeV mass range that interacts via the electroweak force.
Experimental efforts to detect WIMPs include the search for products of WIMP annihilation, including gamma rays, neutrinos and cosmic rays in nearby galaxies and galaxy clusters; direct detection experiments designed to measure the collision of WIMPs with nuclei in the laboratory, as well as attempts to directly produce WIMPs in colliders, such as the LHC.
Because supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics readily predict a new particle with these properties, this apparent coincidence is known as the "WIMP miracle", and a stable supersymmetric partner has long been a prime WIMP candidate. However, recent null results from direct-detection experiments along with the failure to produce evidence of supersymmetry in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment has cast doubt on the simplest WIMP hypothesis.
WIMP-like particles are predicted by R-parity-conserving supersymmetry, a popular type of extension to the Standard Model of particle physics, although none of the large number of new particles in supersymmetry have been observed.
WIMP-like particles are also predicted by universal extra dimension and little Higgs theories.
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