Dark matter is the new BBN

Journal Article · 06 October 2023 · Physics of the Dark Universe

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dark.2023.101353 · OSTI ID:1988449

Hooper, Dan ^[1]; Xiao, Huangyu  ^[2]

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1. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); University of Chicago, IL (United States). Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP)
2. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)

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 ~ 1 s after the Big Bang. Prior to this time, we have essentially no empirical information on which to base any such claims. In this paper, we imagine a future time in which we have not only detected the particles that make up the dark matter, but have measured their mass and annihilation cross section with reasonable precision. In analogy to the light element abundances, the dark matter abundance in this scenario could be used to study and constrain the expansion rate and composition of our universe at the time of dark matter freeze out, which for a standard thermal relic occurs at T_f ~ m_χ/20, corresponding to t ~ 4 x 10^-10 s x (TeV/m_χ)², many orders of magnitude prior to the onset of Big Bang nucleosynthesis. Here we consider how such measurements could be used to constrain scenarios which feature exotic forms of radiation or matter, a ultralight scalar, or modifications to gravity, each of which have the potential to be much more powerfully probed with dark matter than with the light element abundances.

• Research Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-07CH11359
• OSTI ID: 1988449
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-PUB-23-291-T; arXiv:2306.07339; oai:inspirehep.net:2668354
• Journal Information: Physics of the Dark Universe, Vol. 42; ISSN 2212-6864
• Publisher: ElsevierCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English