The identity of the cosmological dark matter is unknown, but there are many well-motivated candidates in terms of elementary particles not contained in the standard model. There is a rich phenomenology related to such new particles, reaching from how they are produced in the early universe to various means of detecting them with accelerators, in large underground detectors, or with space-based or earth-bound telescopes.
The goal of the project is to explore new avenues in one of these general directions, and to assess whether this may open up new opportunities to identify the nature of the dark matter. Depending on the specific direction that is chosen, in close coordination with the supervisor, the project *may* include a significant numerical component. That part of the analysis would dominantly be based on the computer package DarkSUSY. This code is publicly available and widely used, which implies a large visibility of the project results in case of a successful implementation of new (or improved) features.
The project requires an excellent understanding of dark matter phenomenology and a good understanding of quantum field theory. The required analytical skills will strongly depend on the respective sub-task. For the implementation in DarkSUSY, good programming skills are necessary.