Atomic Dark Matter
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2015-05-14 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract
We propose that dark matter is dominantly comprised of atomic bound states. We build a simple model and map the parameter space that results in the early universe formation of hydrogen-like dark atoms. We find that atomic dark matter has interesting implications for cosmology as well as direct detection: Protohalo formation can be suppressed below for weak scale dark matter due to Ion-Radiation interactions in the dark sector. Moreover, weak-scale dark atoms can accommodate hyperfine splittings of order , consistent with the inelastic dark matter interpretation of the DAMA data while naturally evading direct detection bounds.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0909.0753,
title = {Atomic Dark Matter},
author = {David E. Kaplan and Gordan Z. Krnjaic and Keith R. Rehermann and Christopher M. Wells},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0909.0753},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
17 pages, 3 figures