are particularly well motivated, especially when their mass and couplings are tied to the physics of the electroweak scale. Before we discuss the experimental techniques for detecting dark matter particles, we will briefly discuss some of the most compelling motivations for electroweak-scale dark matter.

The challenge of stabilizing the mass of the Higgs boson ([*ie.*]{} the hierarchy problem) leads us to expect new forms of matter to appear at or near the electroweak scale. The nature of any physics beyond the Standard Model which might appear at the TeV scale, however, is tightly constrained by the precision electroweak measurements made at LEP. In particular, new discrete symmetries are required of most phenomenologically viable models of TeV scale physics [@hier]. Such symmetries naturally lead to a stable particle or particles, which may potentially constitute the dark matter of our universe.

A number of extensions of the Standard Model have been proposed which introduce new particle content at or near the electroweak scale, and which include a discrete symmetry of the form required to stabilize a potential dark matter candidate. The most well studied example is the lightest neutralino in supersymmetric models. Others examples include Kaluza-Klein hypercharge gauge bosons in models with 