As luminous tracers of the smallest observationally accessible dark matter halos, faint satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way have the potential to dramatically improve our understanding of dark matter microphysics. However, the confounding effects of baryonic physics on halo abundances and galaxy formation have made the interpretation of the observed MW satellite population unclear.

Direct detection experiments have delivered impressive limits on the interaction strength of Dark Matter with nuclei. A large experimental program is underway to extend the sensitivity of direct detection experiments, however, such experiments are becoming increasingly difficult and costly.

Halometry---mapping out the spectrum, location, and kinematics of nonluminous structures inside the Galactic halo---can be realized via effects that variable weak gravitational lensing induces on the proper motions of stars and other luminous background sources. Modern astrometric surveys provide unprecedented positional precision along with a leap in the number of cataloged objects.

Dark matter could be a thermal relic of freeze-in, where the dark matter is produced by extremely feeble interactions with Standard Model particles dominantly at low temperatures. The simplest sub-MeV dark matter models with freeze-in include models with a kinetically-mixed dark photon mediator, or equivalently models where dark matter is millicharged under the Standard Model U(1).

Most current dark matter detection strategies, including both

direct and indirect efforts, are based on the assumption that the galactic

The particle that makes up the dark matter of the universe could be an axion or some other light boson.  A collection of  axions can condense into a gravitationally bound Bose Einstein condensate called an axion star. It is possible that a significant fraction of the axion dark matter is in the form of axion stars. This would make some efforts to identify the axion as the dark matter particle more challenging, but it would also open up new possibilities. I will summarize the basic properties of axion stars and other gravitationally bound or self-bound condensates of spin-0 particles.