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Description
Overwhelming evidence now suggests that the majority of the matter in our
universe consists of some exotic "stuff" that neither emits nor absorbs
light, but yet makes its presence felt via its gravitational pull on normal
matter. Over the years, a number of simple and elegant ideas have been
advanced to explain the nature and origin of this "dark matter." However,
over the last decade, a variety of puzzling experimental results and
tantalizing potential signals have emerged which are difficult for these
simple proposals to explain without modification. These results have
motivated more complicated solutions to dark-matter problem, and have even
given birth to the idea that our universe might contain a whole "dark
sector" comprising a variety of different particles with different
properties. The dark side of our universe may indeed be a complicated mess.
However, we may also just need to view the dark-matter problem in a
slightly different light. In this talk, I'll describe one such alternative
perspective on that problem -- one in which evidence that might initially
suggest a complicated zoo of interacting and decaying dark particles could
actually be pointing to an organizing principle which renders that dark
ensemble no more complicated than it is in many of the elegant, traditional
solutions to the dark-matter problem. I'll also examine how evidence of
such an organizing principle might emerge at upcoming experiments.
