A Universe Built on Shadows: Evidence, Candidates, and Detection Strategies for Dark Matter

Dark matter is one of the fundamental constituents of the Universe, accounting for nearly 85% of its total matter content. Despite strong astrophysical and cosmological evidence supporting its existence, its microscopic nature remains unknown. Observations ranging from galaxy rotation curves and galaxy cluster dynamics to gravitational lensing, cosmic microwave background anisotropies, and the large-scale distribution of galaxies consistently require a non-luminous matter component that interacts predominantly through gravity. Over the past few decades, numerous theoretical candidates have been proposed, extending the Standard Model of particle physics and motivating an extensive experimental program involving underground detectors, space- and ground-based observatories, and high-energy particle colliders. This contribution presents a concise overview of the current observational evidence for dark matter, discusses the leading theoretical candidates, summarizes the present status of direct, indirect, and collider searches, and highlights the major challenges and future prospects in one of the most active fields of contemporary physics. The future identification of dark matter will likely require the convergence of laboratory, astrophysical and cosmological evidence rather than a single decisive experiment.