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arXiv · 2510.11791

BBN Constraints on the Hadronic Annihilation of sub-GeV Dark Matter

Afif Omar·Adam Ritz
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Abstract

We investigate the impact of residual annihilation from sub-GeV mass thermal relic dark matter candidates during big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). Focusing on candidates with $p$-wave annihilation channels, we show that the hadronic injection of pions and kaons beyond freeze-out, and their subsequent interaction with protons and neutrons prior to the deuterium bottleneck, provides a sensitivity to annihilation that surpasses that of the CMB and indirect detection in the galaxy.

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Afif Omar, Adam Ritz. 2025-10-13. BBN Constraints on the Hadronic Annihilation of sub-GeV Dark Matter. https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.11791

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