Related papers: Cannibal domination and the matter power spectrum
The early universe may have contained internally thermalized dark sectors that were decoupled from the Standard Model. In such scenarios, the relic dark thermal bath, composed of the lightest particle in the dark sector, can give rise to an…
A thermally decoupled hidden sector of particles, with a mass gap, generically enters a phase of cannibalism in the early Universe. The Standard Model sector becomes exponentially colder than the hidden sector. We propose the Cannibal Dark…
A hidden sector with a mass gap undergoes an epoch of cannibalism if number changing interactions are active when the temperature drops below the mass of the lightest hidden particle. During cannibalism, the hidden sector temperature…
If the dark matter is part of a hidden sector with only very feeble couplings to the Standard Model, the lightest particle in the hidden sector will generically be long-lived and could come to dominate the energy density of the universe…
The Universe's early thermal history is poorly constrained, and it is possible that it underwent a period of early matter domination driven by a heavy particle or an oscillating scalar field that decayed into radiation before the onset of…
The universe has evolved through several phases as its various constituents dominated its energy content. Candidate dark matter particles may have undergone freeze-out during any such phase. While the standard freeze-out scenarios have been…
An internally thermalized dark matter (DM) with only gravitational interaction with the standard model (SM) particles at low temperatures, may undergo number-changing self-scatterings in the early Universe, eventually freezing out to the…
Cannibals are dark matter particles with a scattering process that allows three particles to annihilate to two. This exothermic process keeps the gas of the remaining particles warm long after they become non-relativistic. A cannibalizing…
We consider the consequences of a matter power spectrum which rises on small scales until eventually being cutoff by microphysical processes associated with the particle nature of dark matter. Evolving the perturbations of a weakly…
In standard cosmology, the growth of structure becomes significant following matter-radiation equality. In non-thermal histories, where an effectively matter-dominated phase occurs due to scalar oscillations prior to Big Bang…
We highlight the general scenario of dark matter freeze-out whilst the energy density of the universe is dominated by a decoupled non-relativistic species. Decoupling during matter domination changes the freeze-out dynamics, since the…
If dark matter resides in a hidden sector minimally coupled to the Standard Model, another particle within the hidden sector might dominate the energy density of the early universe temporarily, causing an early matter-dominated era (EMDE).…
The evolution of the universe prior to Big Bang Nucleosynthesis could have gone through a phase of early matter domination (EMD) which enhanced the growth of small-scale dark matter structure. If EMD was long enough, self-gravitating…
Self-Interacting Dark Matter models can successfully explain dark matter (DM) production through interactions confined within the dark sector. However, they often lack measurable experimental signals due to their secluded nature. Including…
We consider a self-interacting dark matter model in which the massive dark photon mediating the self-interaction decays to light dark fermions to avoid over-closing the universe. We find that if the model is constrained to explain the dark…
We study the cosmological consequences of co-decaying dark matter - a recently proposed mechanism for depleting the density of dark matter through the decay of nearly degenerate particles. A generic prediction of this framework is an early…
The self-interacting dark matter can affect various cosmological processes. Such interactions can be number conserving (\emph{e.g.} $2 \rightarrow 2$) or number violating (\emph{e.g.} $3 \rightarrow 2,\,4 \rightarrow 2$ etc.). The latter…
An era of kination occurs when the Universe's energy density is dominated by a fast-rolling scalar field. Dark matter that is thermally produced during an era of kination requires larger-than-canonical annihilation cross sections to…
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…
We study a class of early dark energy models which has substantial amount of dark energy in the early epoch of the universe. We examine the impact of the early dark energy fluctuations on the growth of structure and the CMB power spectrum…