Mechanism for thermal relic dark matter of strongly interacting massive particles.
We present a new paradigm for achieving thermal relic dark matter. The mechanism arises when a nearly secluded dark sector is thermalized with the standard model after reheating. The freeze-out process is a number-changing 3→2 annihilation of strongly interacting massive particles (SIMPs) in the dark sector, and points to sub-GeV dark matter. The couplings to the visible sector, necessary for maintaining thermal equilibrium with the standard model, imply measurable signals that will allow coverage of a significant part of the parameter space with future indirect- and direct-detection experiments and via direct production of dark matter at colliders. Moreover, 3→2 annihilations typically predict sizable 2→2 self-interactions which naturally address the "core versus cusp" and "too-big-to-fail" small-scale structure formation problems.
Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA and Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Yonit
Y
Hochberg
Department of Physics, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
Eric
E
Kuflik
Department of Physics, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
Tomer
T
Volansky
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
Jay G
JG
Wacker