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arXiv · 2311.17157

Dark matter relic density in strongly interacting dark sectors with light vector mesons

Elias Bernreuther·Nicoline Hemme·Felix Kahlhoefer·Suchita Kulkarni
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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.

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Elias Bernreuther, Nicoline Hemme, Felix Kahlhoefer, Suchita Kulkarni. 2023-11-28. Dark matter relic density in strongly interacting dark sectors with light vector mesons. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.110.035009

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