Exploring the Nature of Dark Matter with Direct Searches - A XENON Perspective

Some 85% of all matter in the universe consists of non-baryonic cold Dark Matter. We observe its gravitational influence in large astrophysical systems ranging from galaxies to galaxy clusters to the universe as a whole. Dark Matter is the driving force for structure formation and dominated the evolution of the universe over most of its history. Dark Matter, together with Dark Energy, is our most solid evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), a thermal relic of the hot Big Bang, make up a generic class of well-motivated Dark Matter candidates. Direct searches seek to detect WIMPs through their interactions with atomic nuclei. This talk will provide an overview of the field, present recent results from XENON100 and other experiments, and discuss future prospects of experiments at the ton scale.