Boltzmann Suppressed Ultraviolet Freeze-in

Abstract

If the dark matter mass $m$ exceeds the maximum temperature of the Universe ($T_{\rm max} < m$), then its production rate will be Boltzmann suppressed. The important implications of this Boltzmann suppression have been explored for dark matter freeze-in via renormalizable operators. Here we extend these considerations to the case of ultraviolet (UV) freeze-in for which freeze-in proceeds via non-renormalizable operators. The UV freeze-in variant has a number of appealing features, not least that a given effective field theory can describe a multitude of UV completions, and thus such analyses are model agnostic for a given high dimension freeze-in operator. We undertake model independent analyses of UV freeze-in for portal operators of general mass dimensions. Subsequently, we explore a number of specific examples, namely, Higgs portals, bino dark matter, and gravitino dark matter. Finally, we discuss how significant differences arise if one departs from the standard assumptions regarding inflationary reheating (i.e. transitions from an early matter dominated era to radiation domination). As a motivated example we examine the implications of early kination domination. Boltzmann suppressed UV freeze-in is well motivated and permits a number of compelling scenarios. In particular, we highlight that for $T_{\rm max} \sim$ 1 TeV it is feasible that the freeze-in mechanism is entirely realized within a couple of orders of magnitude of the TeV scale, making it experimentally accessible in contrast to traditional freeze-in scenarios.