Related papers: Even SIMP miracles are possible
WIMPs, weakly-interacting massive particles, have been leading candidates for particle dark matter for decades, and they remain a viable and highly motivated possibility. In these lectures, I describe the basic motivations for WIMPs,…
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,…
We show that in a wide class of string derived models of particle physics, heavy string modes with masses around the GUT scale can serve as a viable dark matter candidate. These heavy string modes wind around specific cycles in the…
Motivated by the hypothesis that dark matter self-interactions provide a solution to the small-scale structure formation problems, we investigate the possibilities that the relic density of a self-interacting dark matter candidate can…
We propose an alternate, calculable mechanism of dark matter genesis, "thermal freeze-in," involving a Feebly Interacting Massive Particle (FIMP) interacting so feebly with the thermal bath that it never attains thermal equilibrium. As with…
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…
It was recently proposed that weakly interacting massive particles (WIMP) may provide new ways of generating the observed baryon asymmetry in the early universe, as well as addressing the cosmic coincidence between dark matter and baryon…
Collisionless, cold dark matter in the form of weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs) is well-motivated in particle physics, naturally yields the observed relic density, and successfully explains structure formation on large scales.…
We consider dark matter (DM) with very weak couplings to the standard model (SM), such that its self-annihilation cross section is much smaller than the canonical one, $\langle\sigma v\rangle_{\chi\chi} \ll…
The nature of dark matter (DM) remains one of the most important unanswered questions in particle physics. Here, we propose a novel scenario for DM in which weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) can freeze-in due to a first-order…
In the context of Self-Interacting Dark Matter as a solution for the small-scale structure problems, we consider the possibility that Dark Matter could have been produced without being in thermal equilibrium with the Standard Model bath. We…
Axions and other very weakly interacting slim particles (WISPs) may be non-thermally produced in the early universe and survive as constituents of the dark universe. We describe their theoretical motivation and their phenomenology. A huge…
We investigate the phenomenological viability of a recently proposed class of composite dark matter models where the relic density is determined by 3 to 2 number-changing processes in the dark sector. Here the pions of the strongly…
We investigate the prospects of detecting weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter by measuring the contribution to the extragalactic gamma-ray radiation induced, in any dark matter halo and at all redshifts, by WIMP pair…
Coupling dark matter to light new particles is an attractive way to combine thermal production with strong velocity-dependent self-interactions. Here we point out that in such models the dark matter annihilation rate is generically enhanced…
We revisit the possibility of producing Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) dark matter via a freeze-in mechanism triggered by a supercooled first-order phase transition (FOPT) in the early universe. Unlike traditional freeze-out and…
We present a new paradigm of dark matter freeze-out, where the annihilation of dark matter particles is catalyzed. We discuss in detail the regime that the depletion of dark matter proceeds via $2\chi \to 2A'$ and $3A' \to 2\chi$ processes,…
The freeze-in production of Feebly Interacting Massive Particle (FIMP) dark matter in the early universe is an appealing alternative to the well-known - and constrained - Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) paradigm. Although…
Light WIMPs are dark matter particle candidates with weak scale interaction with the known particles, and mass in the GeV to 10's of GeV range. Hints of light WIMPs have appeared in several dark matter searches in the last decade. The…
Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) remain the strongest candidates for the dark matter in the Universe. If WIMPs are the dark matter, they will form galactic halos according to the hierarchical clustering observed in N-body…