Indirect dark matter searches: A mini-review

Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) still arguably provide the leading hypothesis for the nature of the elusive cosmological dark matter. In astrophysical regions of high dark matter density, these particles would self-annihilate with rather high rates; trying to spot the annihilation products in cosmic rays of various kinds therefore provides a way, in principle, of indirectly detecting dark matter and thereby confirming the particle dark matter hypothesis. Here, I present a short review of the current situation of indirect searches with various messengers and comment on recent theoretical developments in the field. I conclude by advocating that a dedicated instrument for indirect dark matter detection, a concept so far familiar only from direct detection experiments, would allow to fully exploit the potential of indirect searches and make them truly complementary to direct and collider searches for dark matter.