Exotic Signatures of Dark Matter at the LHC

• Nishita Desai (TIFR)

Since direct detection experiments over the last few decades have been unsuccessful in finding dark matter consistent with a WIMP undergoing thermal freeze-out, we should re-examine whether this is indeed the right way to think about dark matter. One can make two possible departures from this paradigm — either by changing the mechanism that determines the DM density or by changing the nature of DM as an elementary particle. Often, when we move away from the WIMP paradigm, the direct detection cross section is too small to be observable and possibly production at colliders becomes our first line of attack. We will examine the generic signatures of both these possibilities at the LHC.