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Capture and decay of electroweak WIMPonium
- Source :
- arXiv
- Publication Year :
- 2017
- Publisher :
- IOP Publishing, 2017.
-
Abstract
- The spectrum of Weakly-Interacting-Massive-Particle (WIMP) dark matter generically possesses bound states when the WIMP mass becomes sufficiently large relative to the mass of the electroweak gauge bosons. The presence of these bound states enhances the annihilation rate via resonances in the Sommerfeld enhancement, but they can also be produced directly with the emission of a low-energy photon. In this work we compute the rate for SU(2) triplet dark matter (the wino) to bind into WIMPonium -- which is possible via single-photon emission for wino masses above 5 TeV for relative velocity v < O(10^{-2}) -- and study the subsequent decays of these bound states. We present results with applications beyond the wino case, e.g. for dark matter inhabiting a nonabelian dark sector; these include analytic capture and transition rates for general dark sectors in the limit of vanishing force carrier mass, efficient numerical routines for calculating positive and negative-energy eigenstates of a Hamiltonian containing interactions with both massive and massless force carriers, and a study of the scaling of bound state formation in the short-range Hulthen potential. In the specific case of the wino, we find that the rate for bound state formation is suppressed relative to direct annihilation, and so provides only a small correction to the overall annihilation rate. The soft photons radiated by the capture process and by bound state transitions could permit measurement of the dark matter's quantum numbers; for wino-like dark matter, such photons are rare, but might be observable by a future ground-based gamma-ray telescope combining large effective area and a low energy threshold.<br />3rd version. An interference sign fixed and changes propagated through the paper. Topline qualitative conclusions unchanged
- Subjects :
- High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
Physics
Gauge boson
Particle physics
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
Annihilation
010308 nuclear & particles physics
Dark matter
Electroweak interaction
FOS: Physical sciences
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Quantum number
01 natural sciences
Massless particle
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
WIMP
0103 physical sciences
Bound state
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
010306 general physics
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14757516
- Volume :
- 2017
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....bf3cc2ef9e6c0177fb864ebd3718ef35