1. Dark matter relic density in strongly interacting dark sectors with light vector mesons
- Author
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Bernreuther, Elias, Hemme, Nicoline, Kahlhoefer, Felix, and Kulkarni, Suchita
- Subjects
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology ,Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics - Abstract
Stable dark matter particles may arise as pseudo-Goldstone bosons from the confinement of dark quarks interacting via a non-Abelian gauge force. Their relic abundance is determined not by annihilations into visible particles but by dark pion number-changing processes within the dark sector, such as $3 \pi_D \to 2 \pi_D$. However, if the dark vector mesons $\rho_D$ are light enough for $3 \pi_D \to \pi_D \rho_D$ annihilations to be kinematically allowed, this process dominates and significantly delays freeze-out. As a result, the preferred dark matter mass scale increases and bounds from the Bullet Cluster can be evaded., Comment: 10 pages revtex4, 3 figures; v2: additional diagrams included, results updated, conclusions unchanged
- Published
- 2023