Related papers: Quintessential Kination and Cold Dark Matter Abund…
If the Universe's energy density was dominated by a fast-rolling scalar field while the radiation bath was hot enough to thermally produce dark matter, then dark matter with larger-than-canonical annihilation cross sections can generate the…
Measurements of the primordial element abundances provide us with an important probe of our universe's early thermal history, allowing us to constrain the expansion rate and composition of our universe as early as $\sim 1 \, {\rm s}$ after…
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…
In some models of thermal relic dark matter, the relic abundance may be set by inelastic scattering processes (rather than annihilations) becoming inefficient as the universe cools down. This effect has been called coscattering. We present…
Based on the cosmological observations, the baryon and dark matter energy densities are similar. There may exist an asymmetry between the dark matter particles and their corresponding anti--particles. We review the relic density of…
We examine a quintessence model with a modified exponential potential given by $V(\phi) = V_0(1+e^{-\lambda \phi})$. Unlike quintessence with a standard exponential potential, our model can yield an acceptable accelerated expansion at late…
We study a nonstandard dark-matter thermal history in which strong self-interactions give rise to collective many-body effects at high number density, as in strongly interacting quantum media. At early times, dark matter occupies a…
Scalar-tensor theories of gravity provide a consistent framework to accommodate an ultra-light quintessence scalar field. While the equivalence principle is respected by construction, deviations from General Relativity and standard…
Kinetic decoupling of dark matter typically happens much later than chemical freeze-out. In fact, local thermal equilibrium is an important assumption for the usual relic density calculations based on solving the Boltzmann equation (for its…
We propose a new mechanism for thermal dark matter freezeout, termed Co-Decaying Dark Matter. Multi-component dark sectors with degenerate particles and out-of-equilibrium decays can co-decay to obtain the observed relic density. The dark…
Thermal freeze-out is a compelling framework for naturally generating the dark matter abundance. We systematically study a broad range of dark matter and mediator particle combinations that can viably realize thermal freeze-out, focusing on…
We investigate the relic abundance of asymmetric Dark Matter where the asymmetric Dark Matter is non--thermally produced from the decay of heavier particles in addition to the usual thermal production. We discuss the relic density of…
The light relic density affects the thermal and expansion history of the early Universe leaving a number of observable imprints. We focus on the primordial abundances of light elements produced during the process of Big Bang nucleosynthesis…
The Cold Dark Matter paradigm successfully explains many phenomena on scales larger than galaxies, but seems to predict galaxy halos which are more centrally concentrated and have a lumpier substructure than observed. Endowing cosmic dark…
We investigate the thermal relic density of the cold dark matter in the context of the brane world cosmology. Since the expansion law in a high energy regime is modified from the one in the standard cosmology, if the dark matter decouples…
The early kinetic decoupling (eKD) effect is an inevitable ingredient in calculating the relic density of dark matter (DM) for various well-motivated scenarios. It appears naturally in forbidden dark matter annihilation, the main focus of…
A novel paradigm for thermal dark matter (DM), termed "bouncing dark matter", is presented. In canonical thermal DM scenarios, the DM abundance falls exponentially as the temperature drops below the mass of DM, until thermal freezeout…
We propose that the dark matter abundance is set by the decoupling of inelastic scattering instead of annihilations. This coscattering mechanism is generically realized if dark matter scatters against states of comparable mass from the…
We propose a novel scenario to obtain the correct relic abundance for thermally under-produced dark matter. This scenario utilizes a strongly first-order phase transition at temperature $T_{\rm PT}$ that gives rise to dark matter mass $m$.…
Dark matter drops out of kinetic equilibrium with standard model particles when the momentum-transfer rate equals the expansion rate. In a radiation-dominated universe, this occurs at essentially the same time as dark matter kinetically…