Related papers: Cannibal Dark Matter
The astronomical dark matter is an essential component of the Universe and yet its nature is still unresolved. It could be made of neutral and massive elementary particles which are their own antimatter partners. These dark matter species…
If, during the early Universe epoch, the dark matter particle thermalizes in a hidden sector which does not thermalize with the Standard Model thermal bath, its relativistic thermal decoupling can easily lead to the observed relic density,…
We present a new model of the dark sector involving Dirac fermion dark matter, with axial coupling to a dark photon which provides a portal to Standard Model particles. In the non-relativistic limit, this implies that the dominant effective…
We consider a minimal extension of the Standard Model with a hidden sector charged under a dark local $U(1)'$ gauge group, accounting simultaneously for light neutrino masses and the observed Dark Matter relic abundance. The model contains…
Dark matter (DM) as a thermal relic of the primordial plasma is increasingly pressured by direct and indirect searches, while the same production mechanism in a decoupled sector is much less constrained. We extend the standard treatment of…
We present kinematically forbidden dark matter annihilations into Standard Model leptons. This mechanism precisely selects the dark matter mass that gives the observed relic abundance. This is qualitatively different from existing models of…
New particles in theories beyond the standard model can manifest as stable relics that interact strongly with visible matter and make up a small fraction of the total dark matter abundance. Such particles represent an interesting physics…
First-order phase transitions can leave relic pockets of false vacua and their particles, that manifest as macroscopic Dark Matter. We compute one predictive model: a gauge theory with a dark quark relic heavier than the confinement scale.…
The standard model of particle physics is marvelously successful. However, it is obviously not a complete or final theory. I shall argue here that the structure of the standard model gives some quite concrete, compelling hints regarding…
If supersymmetry exists at any scale, regardless of whether it is restored around the weak scale, it may be a good symmetry of the dark sector, enforcing a degeneracy between its lowest lying fermions and bosons. We explore the implications…
We propose a new mechanism for thermal dark matter freezeout, termed Co-Decaying Dark Matter. Multi-component dark sectors with degenerate particles and out-of-equilibrium decays can co-decay to obtain the observed relic density. The dark…
At the tail of its velocity distribution, cold dark matter (DM) can annihilate at finite temperature to states heavier than itself. We explore the possibility that DM freezeout is dictated by these "forbidden annihilations" at the…
Asymmetric dark matter can be efficiently captured by neutron stars via elastic scattering with nucleons and dark matter self scattering. The accumulated dark matter thermalizes and concentrates in the stellar interior, forming a dark…
Models of secluded dark matter offer a variant on the standard WIMP picture and can modify our expectations for hidden sector phenomenology and detection. In this work we extend a minimal model of secluded dark matter, comprised of a…
In this paper we investigate light dark matter scenarios where annihilation to Standard Model particles at tree-level is kinematically forbidden. In such cases annihilation can be aided by massive Standard Model-like species, called {\it…
The gamma-ray excess observed from the Galactic Center can be interpreted as dark matter particles annihilating into Standard Model fermions with a cross section near that expected for a thermal relic. Although many particle physics models…
Assisted annihilation is a novel mechanism to generate viable sub-GeV thermal dark matter, where a pair of stable dark matter annihilates with an assister to Standard Model states. Typically such $3 \to 2$ annihilation topologies are flux…
We describe the scenario of WIMPless dark matter. In this scenario of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking, a dark matter candidate in the hidden sector is found to naturally have approximately the right relic density to explain…
We consider a scenario where the dark sector includes two Feebly Interacting Massive Particles (FIMPs), with couplings to the Standard Model particles that allow their production in the Early Universe via thermal freeze-in. These couplings…
The evolution of the Universe between inflation and the onset of big bang nucleosynthesis is difficult to probe and largely unconstrained. This ignorance profoundly limits our understanding of dark matter: we cannot calculate its thermal…