The objective of the workshop series “The Identification of Dark Matter” is to assess critically the status of work attempting to identify what constitutes dark matter; in particular, to consider what techniques are currently being used, how successful they are, and what new techniques are likely to improve the prospects for identifying dark matter candidates in the future. This proceedings volume includes reviews on major particle astrophysics topics in the field of dark matter, as well as short contributed papers.

This book contains written versions of the presentations made at the 4th International Workshop on the Identification of Dark Matter (IDM 2002), held in York, UK, in September 2002. The objective of this workshop series is to assess the status of work attempting to identify what constitutes dark matter — in particular, to consider the techniques being used, how successful they are, and what new techniques are likely to improve prospects for identifying likely dark matter candidates in the future. At IDM 2002 special emphasis was placed on recent results obtained in searches for baryonic and non-baryonic dark matter. The proceedings include reviews of major topics on dark matter, as well as short contributed talks.

TheFifthHEIDELBERGInternationalConferenceonDarkMatterinAst- and Particle Physics, DARK 2004, took place at Texas A&M University, College Station Texas, USA, October 3–9, 2004. It was, after Cape Town 2002, the second conference of this series held outside Germany. The earlier meetings, starting in 1996, were held in Heidelberg. Dark Matter is still one of the most exciting and central ?elds of ast- physics, particle physics and cosmology. The conference covered, as usual for this series, a large range of topics, theoretical and experimental. Theoretical talks covered SUSY/SUGRA phenomenology, which provides at present a preferred theoretical framework for the existence of cold dark matter. Also included were other possible explanations of dark matter such as SUSY Q balls, exciting New Symmetries, etc. The most important experiments in the underground search for cold and hot dark matter were presented. Talks describing the current experimental dark matter bounds, what might be obtained in the near future, and the reach of future large (i.e. one ton) detectors were given. The potential of future colliders to correlate accelerator physics with dark matter searches was also outlined. Thus the reader will be able to see the present status and future prospects in the search for dark matter. The exciting astronomical evidence for dark matter and corresponding observations concerning the Milky Way’s black hole, high-redshift clusters, wakes in dark matter halos were other important topics at the conference.

This volume covers many different subjects, from very high energy cosmic rays to neutrino physics, gravitational waves and cosmology. Recent achievements and the exciting years to come are emphasized.

This volume is the latest in a prominent biannual series of scientific meetings on the exciting research topics of dark matter and, more recently, of dark energy. It contains a state-of-the-art update on detection efforts by experimental groups around the world trying to pin down exotic new forms of matter under the names of axions, neutralinos, wimps, primordial black holes, q balls, sterile neutrinos, as well as a tantalizing new form of dark energy component called phantom energy and quintessence. The book is self-contained as it also includes general reviews on recent cosmological observations — supernovae measurements, cosmic matter distribution surveys and cosmic radiation anisotropies — introducing even the uninitiated reader to this fascinating frontier of research.

The first workshop on detectors using xenon was held on 3rd and 4th of December in 2001, at Kashiwa-Campus of the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, the University of Tokyo. This volume contains the papers presented at the workshop, discussing the basic properties, detector technology and experiments.

The prestigious Identification of Dark Matter workshop series was initiated to assess the status of work that attempts to identify the constitution of dark matter. In particular, it aims to review the success of current methods that are used in the search for dark matter, as well as the new techniques that are likely to improve prospects for detecting possible dark matter candidates in the future. In the 5th International Workshop, special emphasis was placed on the recent results obtained in experiments searching for baryonic and non-baryonic dark matter. This volume comprises the high-quality review articles and papers contributed by leaders and promising young physicists who attended the conference. It provides the most recent updates on dark matter searches from both experimental and theoretical points of view.The proceedings have been selected for coverage in:• Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings® (ISTP® / ISI Proceedings)• Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)• CC Proceedings — Engineering & Physical Sciences