Strong electroweak phase transition in t-channel simplified dark matter models

Biondini, Simone; Schicho, Philipp; Tenkanen, Tuomas V. I.

doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2022/10/044

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 161 publications

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“…LISA therefore raises new hopes to detect dark sectors that are otherwise unobservable. Over the past few years, first-order PTs in dark sectors have been studied in great detail [8][9][10][11][12], and various correlations between GW signals and the phenomenology of DM have been explored [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. The conclusion of these studies is that it is difficult to robustly predict the expected amplitude of the GW signal for a given DM model, because strong PTs often only happen in special regions of parameter space.…”

Section: Jcap05(2024)065mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hunting WIMPs with LISA: correlating dark matter and gravitational wave signals

Bringmann,

Gonzalo,

Kahlhoefer

et al. 2024

J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys.

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The thermal freeze-out mechanism in its classical form is tightly connected to physics beyond the Standard Model around the electroweak scale, which has been the target of enormous experimental efforts. In this work we study a dark matter model in which freeze-out is triggered by a strong first-order phase transition in a dark sector, and show that this phase transition must also happen close to the electroweak scale, i.e. in the temperature range relevant for gravitational wave searches with the LISA mission. Specifically, we consider the spontaneous breaking of a U(1)′ gauge symmetry through the vacuum expectation value of a scalar field, which generates the mass of a fermionic dark matter candidate that subsequently annihilates into dark Higgs and gauge bosons. In this set-up the peak frequency of the gravitational wave background is tightly correlated with the dark matter relic abundance, and imposing the observed value for the latter implies that the former must lie in the milli-Hertz range. A peculiar feature of our set-up is that the dark sector is not necessarily in thermal equilibrium with the Standard Model during the phase transition, and hence the temperatures of the two sectors evolve independently. Nevertheless, the requirement that the universe does not enter an extended period of matter domination after the phase transition, which would strongly dilute any gravitational wave signal, places a lower bound on the portal coupling that governs the entropy transfer between the two sectors. As a result, the predictions for the peak frequency of gravitational waves in the LISA band are robust, while the amplitude can change depending on the initial dark sector temperature.

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Section: Jcap05(2024)065mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hunting WIMPs with LISA: correlating dark matter and gravitational wave signals

Bringmann,

Gonzalo,

Kahlhoefer

et al. 2024

J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Such a case is also 7 An important and relevant consequence for λ 3 ~O(1) is the possibility to trigger a first-order electroweak phase transition for the lepton scenario (see refs. [116,117]). For the purpose of this study, the main point to be made is that, for temperature larger than T ref , the universe expands faster.…”

Section: A Faster Universe Expansionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interplay between improved interaction rates and modified cosmological histories for dark matter

Biondini

2023

Front. Phys.

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A novel particle has been and still is an intriguing option to explain the strong evidence for dark matter in our universe. To quantitatively predict the dark matter energy density, two main ingredients are needed: interaction rates and the history of expansion of the universe. In this work, we explore the interplay between the recent progress in the determination of particle production rates and modified cosmological histories. For the freeze-out mechanism, we focus on Sommerfeld and bound-state effects, which boost and make dark matter pair annihilation more efficient. As regards the freeze-in option, we include thermal masses, which enter the decay processes that produce dark matter, and we find that they can suppress or enhance the dark matter yield. We consider a class of modified cosmological histories that induce a faster universe expansion, and we assess their effect in combination with improved particle interaction rates on the dark matter energy density.

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“…The state-of-the-art computations of the effective potential including higher order terms of perturbation have been studied in refs [46][47][48][49]…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of first-order phase transitions on dark matter production in the scotogenic model

Shibuya

Toma

2022

J. High Energ. Phys.

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In this work, we investigate the effects of first-order phase transitions on the singlet fermionic dark matter in the scotogenic model. It is known that this dark matter candidate tends to conflict with the relevant constraints such as the neutrino oscillation data and charged lepton flavor violating processes if its thermal production mechanism is assumed. We find that the dark matter production mechanisms are modified by first-order phase transitions at some specific parameter regions, where the phase transitions can be one-step or two-step depending on the parameters. If the phase transition is one-step, a sufficiently low nucleation temperature is required to reproduce the observed relic abundance of dark matter. If the phase transition is two-step, the dark matter should never be thermalized, otherwise the abundance would remain too much and overclose the universe. This is because the nucleation temperature cannot be low as in the one-step case. Therefore we require another way of dark matter production, the freeze-in mechanism for the two-step case. We show that the freeze-in mechanism is modified by the temporary vacuum expectation value of the inert scalar field. In both cases, the first-order phase transitions could produce observable gravitational wave spectra. In particular for the one-step phase transition, the generated gravitational waves with sizable energy density are intrinsically correlated with the dark matter production mechanism, and can be detectable by future space-based interferometers.

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Strong electroweak phase transition in t-channel simplified dark matter models

Cited by 9 publications

References 161 publications

Hunting WIMPs with LISA: correlating dark matter and gravitational wave signals

Hunting WIMPs with LISA: correlating dark matter and gravitational wave signals

Interplay between improved interaction rates and modified cosmological histories for dark matter

Impact of first-order phase transitions on dark matter production in the scotogenic model

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