PeV-scale dark matter as a thermal relic of a decoupled sector
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, metastable state, whose subsequent abundance can naturally come to dominate the energy density of the universe. Moreover, when this state decays, it reheats the visible sector and dilutes all relic abundances, thereby allowing the dark matter to be orders of magnitude heavier than the weak scale. For concreteness, we consider a simple realization with a Dirac fermion dark matter candidate coupled to a massive gauge boson that decays to the Standard Model through its kinetic mixing with hypercharge. Finally, we identify viable parameter space in which the dark matter can be as heavy as ~1-100 PeV without being overproduced in the early universe.
- Authors:
-
[1]
;
[2]
; [3]
- Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
- Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
- Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Report Number(s):
- arXiv:1602.08490; FERMILAB-PUB-16-040-A
Journal ID: ISSN 0370-2693; 1424767
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-07CH11359
- Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Physics Letters. Section B
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 760; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0370-2693
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Research Org:
- Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Org:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP) (SC-25)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; 72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1259348
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1260269