Weighing the universe with accelerators and detectors

Abstract

Suppose the lightest superpartner (LSP) is observed at colliders, and WIMPs are detected in explicit experiments. We point out that one cannot immediately conclude that cold dark matter (CDM) of the universe has been observed, and we determine what measurements are necessary before such a conclusion is meaningful. We discuss the analogous situation for neutrinos and axions; in the axion case we have not found a way to conclude axions are the CDM even if axions are detected.

Comments: 15 pages, 3 figures; minor changes included and typos fixed