Related papers: MeV Dark Matter and Small Scale Structure
We propose a new alternative to the Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) paradigm for dark matter. Rather than being determined by thermal freeze-out, the dark matter abundance in this scenario is set by dark matter decay, which is…
The era of precision cosmology has revealed that about 85% of the matter in the universe is dark matter. Two well-motivated candidates are weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and weakly interacting sub-eV particles (WISPs) (e.g.…
Some extensions of the Standard Model provide Dark Matter candidate particles with sub-GeV mass. These Light Dark Matter particles have been considered for example in Warm Dark Matter scenarios (e.g. the keV scale sterile neutrino, axino or…
We consider the possibility of the lightest sterile neutrino dark matter which has dipole interaction with heavier sterile neutrinos. The lifetime can be long enough to be a dark matter candidate without violating other constraints and the…
Although it is usually thought that a class of weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matters (DMs), which have the vector coupling with the $Z$ boson, is denied by null results of the direct DM searches, such WIMP DMs are still…
Current cosmological models and data suggest the existence of a cold Dark Matter (DM) component, however the nature of DM particles remains unknown. A favored candidate for DM is a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) in the mass…
It has been proposed that two resonances could coincide in the early universe at temperatures $T \sim 0.2 ... 0.5$ GeV: one between two nearly degenerate GeV-scale sterile neutrinos, producing a large lepton asymmetry through freeze-out and…
We propose that dark matter is composed of particles that naturally have the correct thermal relic density, but have neither weak-scale masses nor weak interactions. These WIMPless models emerge naturally from gauge-mediated supersymmetry…
A sterile neutrino with a mass around the keV scale could be an interesting candidate for warm dark matter. Although there are several scenarios and production mechanisms known in which such a particle could yield the correct abundance,…
About one-fourth of the universe is thought to consist of dark matter. Yet there is no clear understanding about the nature of these particles. Commonly discussed dark matter candidates includes the so called WIMPs or weakly interacting…
Particle production at the end of a first-order electroweak phase transition may be rather generic in theories beyond the standard model. Dark matter may then be abundantly produced by this mechanism if it has a sizable coupling to the…
We consider electrically neutral complex vector particles $V$ below the GeV mass scale that, from a low energy perspective, couple to the photon via higher dimensional form factor interactions. We derive ensuing astrophysical constraints by…
We study the growth of density perturbations in a universe with unstable dark matter particles. The mass (m_\nu) range 30 eV < m_\nu < 10 keV with lifetimes ($t_d$) in the range 10^7 sec < t_d < 10^16 sec are considered. We calculate the…
Sterile neutrinos with keV masses can constitute all or part of the cosmological dark matter. The electroweak-singlet fermions, which are usually introduced to explain the masses of active neutrinos, need not be heavier than the electroweak…
We show that the new measurement of the effective number of neutrinos Neff by the Planck satellite can be used to set a robust lower bound on the mass of cold thermal dark matter of O(MeV). Our limit applies if the dark matter remains in…
We consider a class of models in which thermal dark matter is lighter than an MeV. If dark matter thermalizes with the Standard Model below the temperature of neutrino-photon decoupling, equilibration and freeze-out cools and heats the…
We study an effective theory beyond the standard model (SM) where either of two additional gauge singlets, a Majorana fermion and a real scalar, constitutes all or some fraction of dark matter. In particular, we focus on the masses of the…
We consider the sensitivity of fixed-target neutrino experiments at the luminosity frontier to light stable states, such as those present in models of MeV-scale dark matter. To ensure the correct thermal relic abundance, such states must…
Since the thermal history of the Universe is unknown before the epoch of primordial nucleosynthesis, the largest temperature of the radiation dominated phase (the reheating temperature) might have been as low as 1 MeV. We perform a…
We consider the cosmology and phenomenology of a dark photon portal to a simple dark sector consisting of a single, light, fermionic dark matter particle species with mass in the MeV range. We entertain three possible kinetic mixing…