Dark Matter direct detection and the XENON project

Gravitational considerations and observations lead us to believe that most of the matter in the Universe is Dark Matter DM but we don t know what DM is made of Current and upcoming detectors have the sensitivity to detect or exclude Weakly Interacting Massive Particles WIMPs as candidates for DM In this talk I will review the physical evidence behind the DM paradigm the particle physics of possible candidates and the basics of the direct search for WIMPs I will give a quick overview of the curren