English

Forbidden Dark Matter

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2015-08-13 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract

Dark Matter (DM) may be a thermal relic that annihilates into heavier states in the early Universe. This Forbidden DM framework accommodates a wide range of DM masses from keV to weak scales. An exponential hierarchy between the DM mass and the weak scale follows from the exponential suppression of the thermally averaged cross section. Stringent constraints from the cosmic microwave background are evaded because annihilations turn off at late times. We provide an example where DM annihilates into dark photons, which is testable through large DM self-interactions and direct detection.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1505.07107,
  title  = {Forbidden Dark Matter},
  author = {Raffaele Tito D'Agnolo and Joshua T. Ruderman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1505.07107},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

6 Pages, 3 Figures; Version published in PRL

R2 v1 2026-06-22T09:41:54.178Z