相关论文: Freezing-in the Hierarchy Problem
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,…
In the standard thermal relic scenario, dark matter remains in chemical equilibrium with the Standard Model radiation bath until freeze-out occurs at $T \sim m_X/20$, where $m_X$ is the dark matter mass. In this familiar class of models,…
In this talk, I explained how the observed dark matter (DM) relic abundance can be accounted for in models composed of three sectors (the DM, the Standard Model (SM) and a light mediator) connected to each other. This scenario is explored…
We present a new paradigm for achieving thermal relic dark matter. The mechanism arises when a nearly secluded dark sector is thermalized with the Standard Model after reheating. The freezeout process is a number-changing 3->2 annihilation…
If the interaction rates between the visible and the dark sectors were never strong enough, the observed dark matter relic abundance could have been produced in the early Universe by non-thermal processes. This is what occurs in the…
The cosmological abundance of dark matter can be significantly influenced by the temperature dependence of particle masses and vacuum expectation values. We illustrate this point in three simple freeze-in models. The first one, which we…
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…
Dark matter may be hidden, with no standard model gauge interactions. At the same time, in WIMPless models with hidden matter masses proportional to hidden gauge couplings squared, the hidden dark matter's thermal relic density may…
We summarize here our studies \cite{Chu:2022xuh,Chu:2023jyb,Chu:2024rrv} on two distinct scenarios for MeV-mass thermal dark matter freeze-out. First, we determine the minimal viable mass for dark matter below tens of MeV, considering…
Dark matter produced from thermal freeze-out is typically restricted to have masses above roughly 1 MeV. However, if the couplings are small, the freeze-in mechanism allows for production of dark matter down to keV masses. We consider dark…
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…
There are many extensions of the Standard Model with a dark matter (DM) candidate obtained via the freeze-out mechanism. It can happen that after all experimental and theoretical constraints are taken into account, all parameter points have…
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…
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…
We consider a model of dark matter where the mediator corresponds to a superposition of a scalar and pseudoscalar, and the scenario where, after reheating, the number densities of the dark sector particles, i.e. the dark matter and the…
In this letter, we consider a class of scenarios in which the dark matter is part of a heavy hidden sector that is thermally decoupled from the Standard Model in the early universe. The dark matter freezes-out by annihilating to a lighter,…
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…
The decoupling of a cold relic, during a decaying-particle-dominated cosmological evolution is analyzed, the relic density is calculated both numerically and semi-analytically and the results are compared with each other. Using plausible…
We propose a new thermal dark matter candidate whose abundance is determined by the freezeout of inverse decays. The relic abundance depends parametrically only on a decay width, while matching the observed value requires that the coupling…
Dark matter (DM) could be a relic of freeze-in through a light mediator, where the DM is produced by extremely feeble, IR-dominated processes in the thermal Standard Model plasma. In the simplest viable models with the DM mass below the MeV…