Status and Perspectives of Direct Dark Matter Searches

Abstract

Supersymmetric particles represent the best motivated candidates to fill the Dark Matter gap, and are actively hunted by a number of competing experiments. Discriminating experiments are testing for the first time SUSY models compatible with accelerator constraints. These experiments contradict the 60 GeV WIMP candidate reported by the DAMA experiment. The sensitivities of direct and indirect detection techniques for both present experiments and future projects are compared.