Ricerc@Sapienza

In the quarter century since their first firm detection by the COBE satellite, Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies and galaxy clustering measurements have revolutionized the field of cosmology with an enormous impact on several branches of astrophysics and particle physics. From observations made by ground-based and satellite experiments a cosmological "concordance" model has emerged, in which the need for new physics beyond the standard model of particle physics is blatantly evident. For example, the Cold Dark Matter (CDM, hereafter) density is now constrained with a 1.25 % accuracy using recent CMB measurements, naively yielding an evidence for CDM at about 80 standard deviations. Cosmology is indeed extremely powerful in identifying CDM, since on cosmological scales the gravitational effect of CDM are cleaner and can be precisely discriminated from those of standard baryonic matter. Currently no other sector of physics aside from cosmology shows the need for CDM to such a level of significance. In this project we propose to make use of the most recent cosmological data to further constrain the nature of dark matter. In particular we will provide constraints on several dark matter candidates as massive neutrinos, neutralinos and axions. New exotic proposal in which modifications to general relativity can mimic dark matter as TeVeS or emergent gravity will be tested. We will also provide forecasts of the future constraints achievable by future experiments. We will make use of three main cosmological observables: CMB, weak lensing and cluster of galaxies.