Simply split strongly interacting massive particles

• Autor(a) principal: Bernal, Nicolás [UNESP]
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Chu, Xiaoyong, Pradler, Josef
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNESP
• Texto Completo: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.95.115023; http://hdl.handle.net/11449/228359

Dark matter which interacts strongly with itself, but only feebly with the Standard Model, is a possibility that has been entertained to solve apparent small-scale structure problems that are pertinent to the noninteracting cold dark matter paradigm. In this paper, we study the simple case in which the self-scattering rate today is regulated by kinematics and/or the abundance ratio, through the mass splitting of nearly degenerate pseudo-Dirac fermions χ1 and χ2 or real scalars φ1 and φ2. We calculate the relic density of these states in a scenario where self-scattering proceeds through off-diagonal couplings with a vector particle V (dark photon) and where the abundance is set through number-depleting 4-to-2 reactions in the hidden sector, or, alternatively, via freeze-in. We study the implications of the considered models and their prospect of solving astrophysical small-scale structure problems. We also show how the introduction of the (meta)stable heavier state may be probed in future dark matter searches.