Neutrino physics and dark matter

The discovery of neutrino oscillations and the growing evidence for the exis- tence of dark matter (DM) provide strong indications for the need of physics beyond the Standard Model. However the detailed nature of the new physics remains elusive. On the one hand, the mechanism responsible for neutrino mass generation and its flavor structure, as well as the nature of the associated mes- senger particle(s) are unknown. Consequently the nature of neutrinos, their mass and mixing parameters are all unpredicted. On the other, the nature of dark matter constitutes one of the most challenging questions in cosmology, though recently some direct and indirect DM detection experiments are show- ing tantalizing hints favoring a light WIMP-like DM candidate or keV dark matter opening hopes for an imminent detection. Linking neutrino mass generation to dark matter, two seemingly unrelated problems into a single framework, is theoretically appealing, and may bring us new insights on both issues. The idea of unification itself, or as Feynman used to call it amalgamation, is central to physics, and in general to any scientific discipline. To unify is to gain new insights by synthesizing and generalizing knowledge. This thesis is dedicated to the interplay between neutrino physics and dark matter. Notably the development and understanding of models where the dy- namics of dark matter and neutrinos are related to one another. By connecting dark matter to neutrinos, it is possible to obtain direct and indirect informa- tion on new physics beyond the Standard Model (bSM). Indeed, neutrinos offer a striking manifestation of bSM physics and various experiments provide us with precise data about their mixing and mass splittings. These data reveal a strong contrast with the known case of the quarks. By the scales of the problem and the precision of these measurements, neutrino physics offers a tantalizing insight into one of the deepest and most enduring problems of the SM, namely the flavor problem.