Related papers: Big Bang initial conditions and self-interacting h…
We consider a generic cosmological model which allows for non-gravitational direct couplings between dark matter and dark energy. The distinguishing cosmological features of these couplings can be probed by current cosmological…
The precision era of multi-messenger astronomy, together with modern astrophysical, cosmological, and gravitational wave observations, increasingly points toward the existence of a ``dark" sector that cannot be explained within the…
We study reheating in $\alpha$-attractor models of inflation in which the inflaton couples to other scalars or fermions. We show that the parameter space contains viable regions in which the inflaton couplings to radiation can be determined…
If cosmic inflation was driven by an electrically neutral scalar field stable on cosmological time scales, the field necessarily constitutes all or part of dark matter (DM). We study this possibility in a scenario where the inflaton field…
A simple way to accommodate dark matter is to postulate the existence of a hidden sector. That is, a set of new particles and forces interacting with the known particles predominantly via gravity. In general this leads to a large set of…
We investigate a simplified freeze-in dark-matter model in which the dark matter only interacts with the standard-model neutrinos via a light scalar. The extremely small coupling for the freeze-in mechanism is naturally realized in several…
Spontaneous breaking of conformal symmetry has been widely exploited in successful model building of both inflationary cosmology and particle physics phenomenology. Conformal Grand Unified Theory (CGUT) inflation provides the same scalar…
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…
So far, the observed effects of dark matter are compatible with it having purely gravitational interactions. However, in many models, dark matter has additional interactions with itself, with the Standard Model, and/or with additional…
We consider the possibility that the inflaton is part of the dark sector and interacts with the standard model through a portal interaction with a heavy complex scalar field in equilibrium with the standard model at high energies. The…
The lack of information before Big Bang Neucleosynthesis (BBN) allow us to assume the presence of a new species $\phi$ whose energy density redshifts as $a^{-(4+n)}$ where $n>0$ and $a$ is the scale factor. This non-standard cosmological…
Meta-stable dark sector particles decaying into electrons or photons may non-trivially change the Hubble rate, lead to entropy injection into the thermal bath of Standard Model particles and may also photodisintegrate light nuclei formed in…
The cosmological scenario of the dark matter generated in the hidden gauge theory based on the grand unification is discussed. It is found that the stability of the dark matter halo of our Galaxy and the cosmic ray observation constrain,…
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…
Early dark energy has emerged as one of the more promising approaches to address the Hubble tension - the statistically significant disparity between measurements of the Hubble constant made using data from different epochs in cosmic…
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…
We consider a minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model, with right-handed neutrinos and local B-L, the difference between baryon and lepton number, a symmetry which is spontaneously broken at the scale of grand unification. To…
In this paper, we have studied an interacting dark energy model. We have assumed the gravitational interaction between the matter fields i.e. between barotropic fluid and the dark energy. The dark energy evolution within the framework of…
Light, weakly-coupled dark sectors may be naturally decoupled in the early universe and enter equilibrium with the Standard Model bath during the epoch of primordial nucleosynthesis. The equilibration and eventual decoupling of dark sector…
The cold dark matter model has become the leading theoretical paradigm for the formation of structure in the Universe. Together with the theory of cosmic inflation, this model makes a clear prediction for the initial conditions for…