Related papers: Inelastically Decoupling Dark Matter
Chemical equilibrium is a commonly made assumption in the freeze-out calculation of coannihilating dark matter. We explore the possible failure of this assumption and find a new conversion-driven freeze-out mechanism. Considering a…
From the particle physics point of view, the most peculiar property of the dark matter particle is its stability on cosmological time scales. We briefly review the possible origins of this characteristic feature for candidates whose relic…
Pair annihilation of heavy stable particles that occurs in the early universe is reconsidered including the off-shell effect not properly taken into account by the conventional Boltzmann equation approach. Our new calculation of the time…
The properties of the dark matter that determine its thermal relic abundance can be very different from the dark matter properties today. We investigate this possibility by coupling a dark matter sector to a scalar that undergoes a phase…
Inelastic dark matter (IDM) models feature an energy threshold for scattering with Standard Model particles, which enables their consistency with the increasingly stringent limits placed by direct detection experiments. In a typical…
We present a thorough analysis of the sequential freeze-in mechanism for dark matter production in the early universe. In this mechanism the dark matter relic density results from pair annihilation of mediator particles which are themselves…
We investigate the evolution of the abundance of the asymmetric thermal Dark Matter when its annihilation rate at chemical decoupling is boosted by the Sommerfeld enhancement. We perform the detailed analysis of the effect of $s$-- and…
The thermal relic density of dark matter is conventionally set by two-body annihilations. We point out that in many simple models, $3 \to 2$ annihilations can play an important role in determining the relic density over a broad range of…
We propose that dark matter is composed of particles that naturally have the correct thermal relic density, but have neither weak-scale masses nor weak interactions. These WIMPless models emerge naturally from gauge-mediated supersymmetry…
Many experiments exploring weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) such as direct, indirect and collider searches have been carried out until now. However, a clear signal of a WIMP has not been found yet and it makes us to suspect that…
Standard lore states that there is tension between the need to accommodate the relic density of a weakly interacting massive particle and direct searches for dark matter. However, the estimation of the relic density rests on an…
The origin of dark matter as a thermal relic offers a compelling way in which the early universe was initially populated by dark matter. Alternative explanations typically appear exotic compared to the simplicity of thermal production.…
Thermal relic dark matter below $\sim 10 \ \text{GeV}$ is excluded by cosmic microwave background data if its annihilation to visible particles is unsuppressed near the epoch of recombination. Usual model-building measures to avoid this…
We introduce DRAKE, a numerical precision tool for predicting the dark matter relic abundance also in situations where the standard assumption of kinetic equilibrium during the freeze-out process may not be satisfied. DRAKE comes with a set…
Inelastic Dark Matter (iDM) is an interesting thermal DM scenario that can pose challenges for conventional detection methods. However, recent studies demonstrated that iDM coupled to a photon by electric or magnetic dipole moments can be…
A strongly interacting massive particle (SIMP) is an interesting candidate for dark matter (DM) because its self-interaction cross section can be naturally strong enough to address the astrophysical problem of small-scale structure…
QCD-like theories in which the dark matter (DM) of the Universe is hypothesized to be a thermal relic in the form of a dark pion has been extensively investigated, with most studies neglecting the CP-violating $\theta$-angle associated with…
Recently we studied the direct detection of multi-component dark matter with arbitrary local energy densities. Although the generation of the dark matter relic abundance is model-dependent, and in principle could be only indirectly related…
The relic density of a cold dark matter (CDM) candidate is calculated in the context of three non-standard cosmological scenaria and its value is compared with the one obtained in the standard regime. In particular, we consider 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…