Related papers: WIMPs during Reheating
We consider a generic mechanism via which thermal relic WIMP dark matter may be decoupled from the Standard Model, namely through a combination of WIMP annihilation to metastable mediators with subsequent delayed decay to Standard Model…
The search for weakly-interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter is multi-pronged. Ultimately, the WIMP-dark-matter picture will only be confirmed if different classes of experiments see consistent signals and infer the same WIMP…
We explore the observational consequences of resonant particle production during inflation, focusing on its impact on dark matter annihilation signals today. A transient burst of particle production generates localised features in the…
We have strong evidence on all cosmic scales, from galaxies to the largest structures ever observed, that there is more matter in the universe than we can see. Galaxies and clusters would fly apart unless they would be held together by…
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 a new type of dark matter with couplings to ordinary matter naturally suppressed by at least one order of magnitude compared to weak interactions. Despite the extra-weak interactions massive particles of this type (XWIMPs)…
The existence of dark matter as evidenced by numerous indirect observations is one of the most important indications that there must be physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. This article reviews the concepts of direct…
Solving the Dark Matter enigma represents one of the key objectives of contemporary physics. Recent astrophysical and cosmological measurements have unambiguously demonstrated that ordinary matter contributes to less than 5 % of the energy…
We show that a star orbiting close enough to an adiabatically grown supermassive black hole can capture a large number of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) during its lifetime. WIMP annihilation energy release in low- to…
We consider models for inflation with a stable inflaton. Reheating is achieved through scattering processes such as $\phi \phi \to h h$, where $h$ is the Standard Model Higgs boson. We consider the reheating process in detail and show that…
Indirect detection of dark matter particles, i.e. the detection of annihilation or decay products of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, has entered a pivotal phase as experiments reach sensitivities that probe the most interesting…
The lifetime of primordial black holes (PBHs), which formed in the early universe, can be extended by the memory burden effect. Light PBHs may exist today and be candidates for dark matter (DM). We assume that DM is made of thermally…
Cold dark matter may be made of superweakly-interacting massive particles, superWIMPs, that naturally inherit the desired relic density from late decays of metastable WIMPs. Well-motivated examples are weak-scale gravitinos in supergravity…
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are one of the leading candidates for Dark Matter. We developed a model-independent method for determining the WIMP mass by using data (i.e., measured recoil energies) of direct detection…
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…
We perform a thorough investigation of (ultra)relativistic freeze-out (UFO) during reheating. While the standard WIMP (non-relativistic freeze-out) and FIMP (freeze-in) paradigms have been explored in detail during the reheating epoch, UFO…
Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are among the favored candidates for cold dark matter in the universe. The phenomenology of supersymmetric WIMPs has been quite developed during recent years. However, there are other…
It is shown that weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which are possible cold dark matter candidates, can be studied by exclusive measurements of X-rays following WIMPs nuclear interactions. Inner-shell atomic electrons are ionized…
A light fermionic weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter is investigated by studying its minimal renormalizable model, where it requires a scalar mediator to have an interaction between the WIMP and standard model particles.…
In supergravity theories, a natural possibility is that neutralinos or sleptons freeze out at their thermal relic density, but then decay to gravitinos after about a year. The resulting gravitinos are then superWIMPs --…