This book contains material from the lecture courses conducted at the Theoretical Advanced Study Institute (TASI, Colorado, USA) on high energy physics and cosmology in 2008. Three series of lectures are presented in parallel in the areas of Large Hadron Collider (LHC) phenomenology and experimentation; advanced theoretical topics beyond the standard model; and neutrino oscillation, astroparticle physics and cosmology. The phenomenology lectures cover a broad spectrum of standard research techniques used to interpret present-day and LHC data. The new physics lectures focus on modern speculations about physics beyond the standard model, with an emphasis on supersymmetry, grand unification theories, extra-dimensional theories, and string phenomenology, which may be tested at the LHC. The lecture series on neutrino physics, astroparticle physics and cosmology treats recent developments in neutrino oscillations, theories and searches of dark matter and dark energy, cosmic microwave background radiation, and density perturbation theory. The lectures are of pedagogical nature in presentation, and are accessible to advanced graduate students and researchers in high energy physics and cosmology.

Describes the dark matter problem in particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology for graduate students and researchers.

A complete treatment of all aspects of dark matter physics This book provides an incisive, self-contained introduction to one of the most intriguing subjects in modern physics, presenting the evidence we have from astrophysics for the existence of dark matter, the theories for what it could be, and the cutting-edge experimental and observational methods for testing them. It begins with a survey of the astrophysical phenomena, from rotation curves to lensing and cosmological structure formation. It goes on to offer the most comprehensive overview available of all three major theories, discussing weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), axions, and primordial black holes. The book explains the constraints on each theory, such as direct detection and indirect astrophysical limits, and enables students to build physical intuition using hands-on exercises and supplemental material. The only book to treat extensively WIMPs, axions, and primordial black holes Provides balanced coverage of the evidence, theory, and testing for dark matter from astrophysics, particle physics, and experimental physics Includes original problems and short quizzes throughout Accompanied by Jupyter notebooks that give sample calculations and methods to reproduce key results and graphs An ideal textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and an essential reference for researchers

Many of the topics in this book are outgrowths of the spectacular new understanding of duality in string theory which emerged around 1995. They include the AdS/CFT correspondence and its relation to holography, the matrix theory formulation of M theory, the structure of black holes in string theory, the structure of D-branes and M-branes, and detailed development of dualities with N = 1 and N = 2 supersymmetry. In addition, there are lectures covering experimental and phenomenological aspects of the Standard Model and its extensions, and discussions on cosmology including both theoretical aspects and the exciting new experimental evidence for a non-zero cosmological constant. Contents: TASI Lectures on Branes, Black Holes and Anti-De Sitter Space (M J Duff); D-Brane Primer (C V Johnson); TASI Lectures on Black Holes in String Theory (A W Peet); TASI Lectures: Cosmology for String Theorists (S M Carroll); TASI Lectures on Matrix Theory (T Banks); TASI Lectures on M Theory Phenomenology (M Dine); TASI Lectures: Introduction to the AdS/CFT Correspondence (I R Klebanov); TASI Lectures on Compactification and Duality (D R Morrison); Compactification, Geometry and Duality: N =2 (P S Aspinwall); TASI Lectures on Non-BPS D-Brane Systems (J H Schwarz); Lectures on Warped Compactifications and Stringy Brane Constructions (S Kachru); TASI Lectures on the Holographic Principle (D Bigatti & L Susskind). Readership: Graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and researchers in high energy physics.

Dark matter is a frequently discussed topic in contemporary particle physics. Written strictly in the language of particle physics and quantum field theory, these course-based lecture notes focus on a set of standard calculations that students need in order to understand weakly interacting dark matter candidates. After introducing some general features of these dark matter agents and their main competitors, the Higgs portal scalar and supersymmetric neutralinos are introduced as our default models. In turn, this serves as a basis for exploring four experimental aspects: the dark matter relic density extracted from the cosmic microwave background; indirect detection including the Fermi galactic center excess; direct detection; and collider searches. Alternative approaches, like an effective theory of dark matter and simplified models, naturally follow from the discussions of these four experimental directions.

This thesis describes in detail a search for weakly interacting massive particles as possible dark matter candidates, making use of so-called mono-jet events. It includes a detailed description of the run-1 system, important operational challenges, and the upgrade for run-2. The nature of dark matter, which accounts for roughly 25% of the energy-matter content of the universe, is one of the biggest open questions in fundamental science. The analysis is based on the full set of proton-proton collisions collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at √s = 8 TeV. Special attention is given to the experimental challenges and analysis techniques, as well as the overall scientific context beyond particle physics. The results complement those of non-collider experiments and yield some of the strongest exclusion bounds on parameters of dark matter models by the end of the Large Hadron Collider run-1. Details of the upgrade of the ATLAS Central Trigger for run-2 are also included.

This thesis describes the search for Dark Matter at the LHC in the mono-jet plus missing transverse momentum final state, using the full dataset recorded in 2012 by the ATLAS Experiment. It is the first time that the number of jets is not explicitly restricted to one or two, thus increasing the sensitivity to new signals. Instead, a balance between the most energetic jet and the missing transverse momentum is required, thus selecting mono-jet-like final states. Collider searches for Dark Matter have typically used signal models employing effective field theories (EFTs), even when comparing to results from direct and indirect detection experiments, where the difference in energy scale renders many such comparisons invalid. The thesis features the first robust and comprehensive treatment of the validity of EFTs in collider searches, and provides a means by which the different classifications of Dark Matter experiments can be compared on a sound and fair basis.