Randomness in the dark sector: Emergent mass spectra and Dynamical Dark Matter ensembles

Fennick, Jacob; Kumar, Jason; Thomas, Brooks

doi:10.1103/physrevd.93.083506

Cited by 20 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We assume that each χ n has a relic abundance Ω n such that the ensemble as a whole carries the observed total darkmatter relic abundance. Indeed, such DDM ensembles are realized in various well-motivated physics models beyond the SM, including scenarios with extra spacetime dimensions [42,43,57], confining hidden-sector gauge groups [58], large spontaneously broken symmetry groups [59,60], and even certain string configurations [58,61].…”

Section: A Constructing a Ddm Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…DDM models do not merely have a random assortment of dark-matter componentsthese components must also have properties such as masses, abundances, and decay widths which obey specific scaling relations. These scaling relations emerge naturally from a variety of underlying DDM constructions [42,43,[57][58][59][60]. The question that remains, then, is not merely whether there exists a nontrivial intermediary injection spectrum dN ϕ =dE ϕ that can fit the GC excess, but whether this injection spectrum is also consistent with an underlying dark sector whose individual components exhibit scaling relations of the sort DDM assumes.…”

Section: A Constructing a Ddm Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Boxes, boosts, and energy duality: Understanding the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess through Dynamical Dark Matter

et al. 2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many models currently exist which attempt to interpret the excess of gamma rays emanating from the Galactic Center in terms of annihilating or decaying dark matter. These models typically exhibit a variety of complicated cascade mechanisms for photon production, leading to a nontrivial kinematics which obscures the physics of the underlying dark sector. In this paper, by contrast, we observe that the spectrum of the gamma-ray excess may actually exhibit an intriguing "energy-duality" invariance under E γ → E 2 Ã =E γ for some E Ã . As we shall discuss, such an energy duality points back to a remarkably simple alternative kinematics which in turn is realized naturally within the Dynamical Dark Matter framework. Observation of this energy duality could therefore provide considerable information about the properties of the dark sector from which the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess might arise, and highlights the importance of acquiring more complete data for the Galactic Center excess in the energy range around 1 GeV.

show abstract

Section: A Constructing a Ddm Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Constructing a Ddm Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Boxes, boosts, and energy duality: Understanding the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess through Dynamical Dark Matter

et al. 2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Dark-matter ensembles with these properties emerge naturally in a variety of contexts [23,24,[49][50][51][52], and detection strategies for such ensembles are discussed in Refs. [53][54][55][56][57][58][59].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kaluza-Klein towers in the early universe: Phase transitions, relic abundances, and applications to axion cosmology

Kost¹,

Thomas²

2017

Phys. Rev. D

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We study the early-universe cosmology of a Kaluza-Klein (KK) tower of scalar fields in the presence of a mass-generating phase transition, focusing on the time-development of the total tower energy density (or relic abundance) as well as its distribution across the different KK modes. We find that both of these features are extremely sensitive to the details of the phase transition and can behave in a variety of ways significant for late-time cosmology. In particular, we find that the interplay between the temporal properties of the phase transition and the mixing it generates are responsible for both enhancements and suppressions in the late-time abundances, sometimes by many orders of magnitude. We map out the complete model parameter space and determine where traditional analytical approximations are valid and where they fail. In the latter cases we also provide new analytical approximations which successfully model our results. Finally, we apply this machinery to the example of an axion-like field in the bulk, mapping these phenomena over an enlarged axion parameter space that extends beyond those accessible to standard treatments. An important byproduct of our analysis is the development of an alternate "UV-based" effective truncation of KK theories which has a number of interesting theoretical properties that distinguish it from the more traditional "IR-based" truncation typically used in the extra-dimension literature.

show abstract

“…[1,2,9] (or even the purely four-dimensional DDM ensembles considered in Refs. [10,11]). For example, the KK states corresponding to a single flat extra spacetime dimension have degeneracieŝ g n which are constant, or which become so above the n ¼ 0 level.…”

Section: ð2:4þmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, under certain circumstances, thermal freeze-out mechanisms for abundance generation can also lead to appropriate polynomial inverse scaling relations between lifetimes and abundances [10]. In fact, such inverse scaling relations can even emerge statistically in contexts in which the dynamics underlying the dark sector is essentially random [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamical Dark Matter from strongly-coupled dark sectors

Huang

Thomas

2017

Phys. Rev. D

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dynamical Dark Matter (DDM) is an alternative framework for dark-matter physics in which the dark sector comprises a vast ensemble of particle species whose Standard-Model decay widths are balanced against their cosmological abundances. Previous studies of this framework have focused on a particular class of DDM ensembles-motivated primarily by Kaluza-Klein towers in theories with extra dimensions-in which the density of dark states scales roughly as a polynomial of the mass. In this paper, by contrast, we study the properties of a different class of DDM ensembles in which the density of dark states grows exponentially with mass. Ensembles with this Hagedorn-like property arise naturally as the "hadronic" resonances associated with the confining phase of a strongly-coupled dark sector; they also arise naturally as the gauge-neutral bulk states of Type I string theories. We study the dynamical properties of such ensembles, and demonstrate that an appropriate DDM-like balancing between decay widths and abundances can emerge naturally-even with an exponentially rising density of states. We also study the effective equations of state for such ensembles, and investigate some of the model-independent observational constraints on such ensembles that follow directly from these equations of state. In general, we find that such constraints tend to introduce correlations between various properties of these DDM ensembles such as their associated mass scales, lifetimes, and abundance distributions. For example, we find that these constraints allow DDM ensembles with energy scales ranging from the GeV scale all the way to the Planck scale, but that the total present-day cosmological abundance of the dark sector must be spread across an increasing number of different states in the ensemble as these energy scales are dialed from the Planck scale down to the GeV scale. Numerous other correlations and constraints are also discussed.

show abstract

Randomness in the dark sector: Emergent mass spectra and Dynamical Dark Matter ensembles

Cited by 20 publications

References 34 publications

Boxes, boosts, and energy duality: Understanding the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess through Dynamical Dark Matter

Boxes, boosts, and energy duality: Understanding the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess through Dynamical Dark Matter

Kaluza-Klein towers in the early universe: Phase transitions, relic abundances, and applications to axion cosmology

Dynamical Dark Matter from strongly-coupled dark sectors

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About