English

Spontaneous dark-matter mass generation along cosmological attractors in string theory

High Energy Physics - Theory 2019-05-01 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

We propose a new scenario for generating a relic density of non-relativistic dark matter in the context of heterotic string theory. Contrary to standard thermal freeze-out scenarios, dark-matter particles are abundantly produced while still relativistic, and then decouple from the thermal bath due to the sudden increase of their mass above the universe temperature. This mass variation is sourced by the condensation of an order-parameter modulus, which is triggered when the temperature T(t) drops below the supersymmetry breaking scale M(t), which are both time-dependent. A cosmological attractor mechanism forces this phase transition to take place, in an explicit class of heterotic string models with spontaneously broken supersymmetry, and at finite temperature.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1812.10134,
  title  = {Spontaneous dark-matter mass generation along cosmological attractors in string theory},
  author = {Thibaut Coudarchet and Lucien Heurtier and Herve Partouche},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.10134},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

41 pages, 6 figures