SUPERSYMMETRIC DARK-MATTER

There is almost universal agreement among astronomers that most of the mass in the Universe and most of the mass in the Galactic halo is dar k. Many lines of reasoning suggest that the dark matter consists of so me new, as yet undiscovered, weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP ). There is now a vast experimental effort being surmounted to detect WIMPs in the halo. The most promising techniques involve direct detect ion in low-background laboratory detectors and indirect detection thro ugh observation of energetic neutrinos from annihilation of WIMPs that have accumulated in the Sun and/or the Earth. Of the many WIMP candid ates, perhaps the best motivated and certainly the most theoretically developed is the neutralino, the lightest super partner in many supers ymmetric theories. We review the minimal supersymmetric extension of t he standard model and discuss prospects for detection of neutralino da rk matter. We review in detail how to calculate the cosmological abund ance of the neutralino and the event rates for both direct- and indire ct-detection schemes, and we discuss astrophysical and laboratory cons traints on supersymmetric models. We isolate and clarify the uncertain ties from particle physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics that ent er al each step in the calculations. We briefly review other related d ark-matter candidates and detection techniques.