Related papers: Particle decays during the cosmic dark ages
Particle creation (or annihilation) mechanisms, described by either quantum field theoretical models, or by the thermodynamics of irreversible processes, play an important role in the evolution of the early Universe, like, for example, in…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) of stellar mass or heavier would accrete baryonic gas, which becomes denser and hotter, injecting energetic photons in the cosmological medium soon after cosmic recombination, in the so-called dark ages. The…
We have studied the implications of the new generation of CMB spectrum space experiments for our knowledge of the thermal history of the Universe. The combination of two experiments with the sensitivity and the frequency coverage jointly…
We study the growth of density perturbations in a universe with unstable dark matter particles. The mass (m_\nu) range 30 eV < m_\nu < 10 keV with lifetimes ($t_d$) in the range 10^7 sec < t_d < 10^16 sec are considered. We calculate the…
Decaying dark matter cosmological models have been proposed to remedy the overproduction problem at small scales in the standard cold dark matter paradigm. We consider a decaying dark matter model in which one CDM mother particle decays…
If dark matter is made up of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, the annihilation of these particles in halos results in energy being released, some of which is absorbed by gas, causing partial ionization and heating. Dark matter…
The nature of the dark energy is still a mystery and several models have been proposed to explain it. Here we consider a phenomenological model for dark energy decay into photons and particles as proposed by Lima (J. Lima, Phys. Rev. D 54,…
The resonant conversion, within the inter-galactic medium, of regular photons into dark photons amplifies the anisotropy observed in the CMB, thereby imposing stringent constraints on the existence of light dark photons. In this study, we…
The Universe's early thermal history is poorly constrained, and it is possible that it underwent a period of early matter domination driven by a heavy particle or an oscillating scalar field that decayed into radiation before the onset of…
In supersymmetric unified theories the dark matter particle can decay, just like the proton, through grand unified interactions with a lifetime of order of 10^{26} sec. Its decay products can be detected by several experiments -- including…
Axions with mass greater than 0.7 eV are excluded by cosmological precision data because they provide too much hot dark matter. While for masses above 20 eV the axion lifetime drops below the age of the universe, we show that the…
We present constraints on decaying-particle models in which an enhanced relativistic density allows an $\Omega=1$ Cold Dark Matter universe to be reconciled with acceptable values for the Hubble constant. Such models may contain extra…
We propose a simple model in which the cosmological dark matter consists of particles whose mass increases with the scale factor of the universe. The particle mass is generated by the expectation value of a scalar field which does not have…
In this paper we explore the potential effects of DM annihilations on the cosmological recombination spectrum. With this example we want to demonstrate that the cosmological recombination spectrum in principle is sensitive to details…
Determinations of the main cosmological parameters are reviewed and the implications for cold dark matter discussed. There is no longer an age problem for an $\Omega_o = 1, \Lambda = 0$ model and, if anything, there is now an age problem…
The stability of particles in the cosmic soup is an important property that can affect the cosmic evolution. In this work, we update the constraints on the decaying cold dark matter scenario, when the decay products are effectively…
If dark matter decays or annihilates into electrons and positrons, it can affect radiation and cosmic-ray backgrounds. We review a novel, more general analysis of constraints on decaying dark matter models, by introducing the response…
We show that if dark energy evolves in time, its dynamical component could be dominated by a bath of dark radiation. Within current constraints this radiation could have up to $\sim 10^4$ times more energy density than the cosmic microwave…
Many extensions of the Standard Model predict large numbers of additional unstable particles whose decays in the early universe are tightly constrained by observational data. For example, the decays of such particles can alter the ratios of…
Dark matter (DM) particles decaying in the Galactic halo can inject energetic $e^\pm$ that inverse-Compton scatter (ICS) solar photons into $\gamma$-rays, producing a diffuse and extended halo of emission around the Sun. We present the…