Related papers: Reconstructing Non-standard Cosmologies with Dark …
We study a mechanism where the dark matter number density today arises from asymmetries generated in the dark sector in the early universe, even though total dark matter number remains zero throughout the history of the universe. The dark…
The details of what constitutes the majority of the mass that makes up dark matter in the Universe remains one of the prime puzzles of cosmology and particle physics today - eighty years after the first observational indications. Today, it…
We examine the question to what extent prospective detection of dark matter by direct and indirect- detection experiments could shed light on what fraction of dark matter was generated thermally via the freeze-out process in the early…
Dark Matter is one of the most intriguing riddles of modern astrophysics. The Standard Cosmological Model implies that only 4.5% of the mass-energy of the Universe is baryonic matter and the remaining 95% is unknown. Of this remainder, 22%…
We review current cosmological constraints on the axion. We describe the basic mechanisms by which axions are created in the early universe, focussing on the standard thermal scenario where the dominant process is through axion radiation by…
If dark matter (DM) is a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) that is a thermal relic of the early Universe, then its total self-annihilation cross section is revealed by its present-day mass density. The canonical thermally averaged…
One of the major challenges of modern physics is to decipher the nature of dark matter. Astrophysical observations provide ample evidence for the existence of an invisible and dominant mass component in the observable universe, from the…
We investigate the relic density n_\chi of non-relativistic long-lived or stable particles \chi in non-standard cosmological scenarios. We calculate the relic abundance starting from arbitrary initial temperatures of the radiation-dominated…
Two new observations have strengthened the case for the supersymmetric nature of the Cold Dark Matter component in our universe: First, it was shown that new data on the nuclear abundance, B/C - and 10Be/9Be ratios constrain the diffusion…
We investigate the production of neutralino dark matter in a cosmological scenario featuring an early matter dominated era ending at a relatively low reheating temperature. In such scenarios different production mechanisms of weakly…
The South Pole Telescope (SPT), Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), and Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) have each reported measurements of the cosmic microwave background's (CMB) angular power spectrum which favor the existence…
In existing dark matter models with global symmetries the relic abundance of dark matter is either equal to that of anti-dark matter (thermal WIMP), or vastly larger, with essentially no remaining anti-dark matter (asymmetric dark matter).…
Non-thermal dark matter generation is an appealing alternative to the standard paradigm of thermal WIMP dark matter. We reconsider non-thermal production mechanisms in a systematic way, and develop a numerical code for accurate computations…
Recent breakthroughs in cosmology reveal that a quarter of the Universe is composed of dark matter, but the microscopic identity of dark matter remains a deep mystery. I review recent progress in resolving this puzzle, focusing on two…
One of the most promising strategies to identify the nature of dark matter consists in the search for new particles at accelerators and with so-called direct detection experiments. Working within the framework of simplified models, and…
These lectures are intended to provide a brief pedagogical review of dark matter for the newcomer to the subject. We begin with a discussion of the astrophysical evidence for dark matter. The standard weakly-interacting massive particle…
The internal structure of the Standard Model implies a natural $\mathbb{Z}_4 \times \mathbb{Z}_3$ discrete gauge symmetry. Cancellation of the corresponding Dai--Freed anomalies requires the introduction of three right-handed neutrinos and…
The recent WMAP data have confirmed that exotic dark matter together with the vacuum energy (cosmological constant) dominate in the flat Universe. The nature of the dark matter constituents cannot be determined till they are directly…
We investigate the relic abundance of asymmetric dark matter in the non-standard cosmological scenarios when the annihilation cross section includes self annihilations. Here we discuss the kination model and brane world cosmology. When the…
The nature of dark matter (DM) and how it might interact with the particles of the Standard Model (SM) is one of greatest mysteries currently facing particle physics, and addressing these issues should provide some understanding of how the…