Warm dark matter from freeze-in at stronger coupling
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2026-05-05 v2 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract
We study warm Higgs portal dark matter (DM) in the framework of freeze-in at stronger coupling. This scenario assumes that the Standard Model thermal bath temperature has always been relatively low, which suppresses dark matter production. As a result, a significant DM-Higgs coupling is allowed, enabling warm dark matter detection via Higgs decay at colliders. We find that the Lyman-{\alpha} bound on the DM mass is particularly strong, excluding masses below 50-100 keV, depending on further details. The shape of the DM momentum distribution is highly non-thermal, with low momenta being effectively cut off, and not captured by the common {\alpha}{\beta}{\gamma}-parametrization.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2602.20242,
title = {Warm dark matter from freeze-in at stronger coupling},
author = {Duarte Feiteira and Oleg Lebedev and Vinícius Oliveira},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.20242},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
19 pages, 7 figures To appear on Phys. Lett. B