Related papers: Getting a THUMP from a WIMP
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) have long reigned as one of the leading classes of dark matter candidates. The observed dark matter abundance can be naturally obtained by freezeout of weak-scale dark matter annihilations in the…
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,…
The unitary bound restricts thermal relics to be lighter than $100$ TeV. This work investigates the production of ultraheavy dark matter and WIMPs in the presence of primordial black holes. Firstly, we describe how Hawking evaporation can…
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…
The 'WIMP miracle' for the relic abundance of thermal dark matter motivates weak scale dark matter with renormalizable couplings to standard model particles. We study minimal models with such couplings that explain dark matter as a thermal…
It is well known that stable weak scale particles are viable dark matter candidates since the annihilation cross section is naturally about the right magnitude to leave the correct thermal residual abundance. Many dark matter searches have…
We summarize here our studies \cite{Chu:2022xuh,Chu:2023jyb,Chu:2024rrv} on two distinct scenarios for MeV-mass thermal dark matter freeze-out. First, we determine the minimal viable mass for dark matter below tens of MeV, considering…
Thermal freeze-out is a prominent example of dark matter (DM) production mechanism in the early Universe that can yield the correct relic density of stable weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). At the other end of the mass scale,…
The thermal inflation is the most plausible mechanism that solves the cosmological moduli problem naturally. We discuss relic abundance of superheavy particle $X$ in the presence of the thermal inflation assuming that its lifetime is longer…
Thermal dark matter is a compelling setup that has been probed by a multitude of experiments, mostly in the GeV-TeV mass range. The thermal paradigm in the sub-GeV range is about to experience the same experimental test with the next…
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…
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 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…
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,…
The scalar dark matter candidate in a prototypical theory space little Higgs model is investigated. We review all details of the model pertinent to dark matter. We perform a thermal relic density calculation including couplings to the gauge…
The lack of new physics at the LHC so far weakens the argument for TeV scale thermal dark matter. On the other hand, heavier, non-thermal dark matter is generally difficult to test experimentally. Here we consider the interesting and…
We discuss the production of dark matter with mass of order $10$-$100$ TeV and $\mathcal{O}(1)$ couplings to the standard model, a scenario we refer to as the `mesotuned WIMP'. Given the lack of new physics observed at the LHC, indicating…
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 present a scenario for GeV-scale thermal dark matter that can only be tested with accelerator experiments. Dark matter is composed of dark pions arising from a confining strong interaction in the dark sector. The thermal relic density is…
Assisted annihilation generates thermal sub-GeV dark matter through a novel annihilation between a pair of dark matter and standard-model-like states, called the "assister". We show that, depending on the mass hierarchy between the assister…