Related papers: Reshuffled Strongly Interacting Massive Particle D…
The stable hadronic bound states in a hidden new non-Abelian gauge sector provide interesting candidates for strongly-interacting Dark Matter (DM). A particular example are theories in which DM is made up of dark pions which set the DM…
The Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) is the main candidate for the relic dark matter. A set of exclusion curves currently obtained for cross sections of the spin-dependent WIMP-proton and WIMP-neutron interaction is given. A…
While the paradigm of a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) has guided our search strategies for dark matter in the past decades, their null-results have stimulated growing interest in alternative explanations pointing towards…
In this thesis, we investigate various possibilities of Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) dark matter (DM) and their implications. These possibilities are important because they challenge the viability of WIMP DM in light of tight…
In this thesis, we start by reviewing all constraints applying on self-interacting DM with a light mediator considering well-known Higgs portal and Kinetic Mixing portal models as concrete examples. Then, we elaborate on the Sommerfeld…
The dark matter annihilation channels sometimes involve sharp resonances. In such cases the usual momentum averaged approximations for computing the DM abundance may not be accurate. We develop an easily accessible momentum dependent…
Assuming the existence of a primordial asymmetry in the dark sector, a scenario usually dubbed Asymmetric Dark Matter (aDM), we study the effect of oscillations between dark matter and its antiparticle on the re-equilibration of the initial…
Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) form a promising solution to the dark matter problem and many experiments are now searching for these particles. Using effective field theories to describe the interaction of the WIMP with the…
We present an effective field theory describing the relevant interactions of the Standard Model with an electrically neutral particle that can account for the dark matter in the Universe. The possible mediators of these interactions are…
This work studies the self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) scenario in the general NMSSM and beyond, where the dark matter is a Majorana fermion and the force mediator is a scalar boson. An improved analytical expression for the dark matter…
This paper presents a systematic and accurate treatment of the evolution of cosmological perturbations in self-interacting dark matter models, for particles which decoupled from the primordial plasma while relativistic. We provide a…
Kinetic decoupling of dark matter typically happens much later than chemical freeze-out. In fact, local thermal equilibrium is an important assumption for the usual relic density calculations based on solving the Boltzmann equation (for its…
We consider the proposal that dark matter (DM) is composed of a spin-3/2 particle that is a singlet of the standard model (SM). Its leading effective interactions with ordinary matter involve a pair of their fields and a pair of SM…
In strongly interacting massive particle (SIMP) scenarios, dark matter is comprised of stable dark pions whose $3\to 2$ or $4\to 2$ reactions set the dark matter relic abundance. Recent work has shown that shallow two-pion bound states…
We devise a method to constrain self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) from observations of quadruply-imaged quasars, and apply it to five self-interaction potentials with a long-range dark force. We consider several SIDM models with an…
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…
In the late Universe, and on cosmological scales, dark matter is conventionally assumed to be collisionless, as a consequence of the strong existing bounds on dark matter interactions at the Cosmic Microwave Background last-scattering…
We explore the transition from the $\Lambda$CDM to an interacting dark sector by introducing a model with a redshift threshold that controls the onset of the energy transfer between the dark energy and the dark matter. Below the transition…
We consider a dark sector consisting of fermionic dark matter (DM) charged under a broken dark $U(1)_D$ gauge symmetry, interacting with the Standard Model through kinetic mixing. In such models, the DM annihilation cross section is…
In a usual dark matter (DM) model without a huge mass difference between the DM and lighter mediator, using the coupling strength suitable for having the correct relic density, the resulting self-interaction becomes several orders of…