Related papers: Thermal Relic Dark Matter Beyond the Unitarity Lim…
In this letter, we consider a class of scenarios in which the dark matter is part of a heavy hidden sector that is thermally decoupled from the Standard Model in the early universe. The dark matter freezes-out by annihilating to a lighter,…
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 propose a mechanism of elementary thermal dark matter with mass up to $10^{14}$ GeV, within a standard cosmological history, whose relic abundance is determined solely by its interactions with the Standard Model, without violating the…
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…
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…
Dark matter may be a thermal relic whose abundance is set by mutual annihilations among multiple species. Traditionally, this coannihilation scenario has been applied to weak scale dark matter that is highly degenerate with other states. We…
It has recently been shown that if the dark matter is in thermal equilibrium with a sector that is highly decoupled from the Standard Model, it can freeze-out with an acceptable relic abundance, even if the dark matter is as heavy as ~1-100…
We study the general properties of the freezeout of a thermal relic. We give analytic estimates of the relic abundance for an arbitrary freezeout process, showing when instantaneous freezeout is appropriate and how it can be corrected when…
The identity of dark matter is being sought with increasingly sensitive and voluminous underground detectors. Recently the XENON1T collaboration reported excess electronic recoil events, with most of these having recoil energies around…
We show that a thermal relic which decouples from the standard model (SM) plasma while relativistic can be a viable dark matter (DM) candidate, if the decoupling is followed by a period of entropy dilution that heats up the SM, but not the…
We show that the relic abundance of thermal dark matter annihilating via a long-range interaction, is significantly affected by the formation and decay of dark matter bound states in the early universe, if the dark matter mass is above a…
Although Planck data supports the standard \Lambda CDM model, it still allows for the presence of Dark Radiation corresponding up to about half an extra standard neutrino species. We propose a scenario for obtaining a fractional "effective…
Using the upper bound on the inelastic reaction cross-section implied by S-matrix unitarity, we derive the thermally averaged maximum dark matter (DM) annihilation rate for general $k \rightarrow 2$ number-changing reactions, with $k \geq…
We investigate a simple extension of the Standard Model where the baryon number is a local gauge symmetry and the cold dark matter in the Universe can be described by a fermionic field with baryon number. We refer to this scenario as…
We re-examine unitarity bounds on the annihilation cross section of thermal-WIMP dark matter. For high-mass pointlike dark matter, it is generic to form WIMP bound states, which, together with Sommerfeld enhancement, affects the relic…
What is the upper limit of the mass of the neutralino dark matter whose thermal relic is consistent with the observation? If the neutralino dark matter and colored sparticles are extremely degenerated in mass, with a mass difference less…
The observed density of dark matter is of the magnitude expected for a thermal relic weakly-interacting massive particle (WIMP). In addition, the observed baryon density is within an order of magnitude of the dark matter density. This…
In this work we complete a model independent analysis of dark matter constraining its mass and interaction strengths with data from astro- and particle physics experiments. We use the effective field theory framework to describe…
We discuss a supersymmetric model for cogenesis of dark and baryonic matter where the dark matter (DM) has mass in the 8-10 GeV range as indicated by several direct detection searches including most recently the CDMS experiment with the…
Limits on the "thermal relic" warm dark matter mass are apparently inconsistent with measurements of the warm dark matter temperature-to-mass ratio. We try to understand this problem.