Big Bang Synthesis of Nuclear Dark Matter

Abstract

We investigate the physics of dark matter models featuring composite bound states carrying a large conserved dark "nucleon" number. The properties of sufficiently large dark nuclei may obey simple scaling laws, and we find that this scaling can determine the number distribution of nuclei resulting from Big Bang Dark Nucleosynthesis. For plausible models of asymmetric dark matter, dark nuclei of large nucleon number, e.g. > 10^8, may be synthesised, with the number distribution taking one of two characteristic forms. If small-nucleon-number fusions are sufficiently fast, the distribution of dark nuclei takes on a logarithmically-peaked, universal form, independent of many details of the initial conditions and small-number interactions. In the case of a substantial bottleneck to nucleosynthesis for small dark nuclei, we find the surprising result that even larger nuclei, with size >> 10^8, are often finally synthesised, again with a simple number distribution. We briefly discuss the constraints arising from the novel dark sector energetics, and the extended set of (often parametrically light) dark sector states that can occur in complete models of nuclear dark matter. The physics of the coherent enhancement of direct detection signals, the nature of the accompanying dark-sector form factors, and the possible modifications to astrophysical processes are discussed in detail in a companion paper.

27 pages, 5 figures, v3; minor additional comments - matches published version

References in corpus (14)

• Planck 2013 results. XVI. Cosmological parameters
• Search for a dark photon in e+e- collisions at BABAR
• Cores in Dwarf Galaxies from Dark Matter with a Yukawa Potential
• Constraining Light Dark Matter with Diffuse X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Observations
• Asymmetric Dark Matter from Leptogenesis
• Hylogenesis: A Unified Origin for Baryonic Visible Matter and Antibaryonic Dark Matter
• Unified origin of baryons and dark matter
• Constraining The Early-Universe Baryon Density And Expansion Rate
• Self-Scattering for Dark Matter with an Excited State
• Yukawa Bound States of a Large Number of Fermions
• Halo Independent Direct Detection of Momentum-Dependent Dark Matter
• Baryogenesis, Dark Matter and the Pentagon
• Annihilation Signals from Asymmetric Dark Matter
• Towards Cogenesis via Asymmetric Freeze-in: The $\chi$ Who Came-in from the Cold

Cited by in corpus (78)

• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Search for Signals from New Physics
• Dark Matter Triggers of Supernovae
• Review of strongly-coupled composite dark matter models and lattice simulations
• A Next-Generation Liquid Xenon Observatory for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics
• Dark Quark Nuggets
• Asymmetric Dark Stars and Neutron Star Stability
• Search for composite dark matter with optically levitated sensors
• Twin Higgs Asymmetric Dark Matter
• Making Asymmetric Dark Matter Gold: Early Universe Synthesis of Nuggets
• Nuclear Structure of Bound States of Asymmetric Dark Matter
• Dark Matter as a weakly coupled Dark Baryon
• Dynamical Dark Matter from Strongly-Coupled Dark Sectors
• Detecting Dark Blobs
• Proposal for gravitational direct detection of dark matter
• Signatures of Large Composite Dark Matter States
• Astrophysical Signatures of Asymmetric Dark Matter Bound States
• Directional detection of dark matter in universal bound states
• Superheavy Thermal Dark Matter and Primordial Asymmetries
• Dark Matter, Destroyer of Worlds: Neutrino, Thermal, and Existential Signatures from Black Holes in the Sun and Earth
• Direct Detection of Bound States of Asymmetric Dark Matter
• Accelerating Composite Dark Matter Discovery with Nuclear Recoils and the Migdal Effect
• Glueball scattering cross section in lattice SU(2) Yang-Mills theory
• Is Self-Interacting Dark Matter Undergoing Dark Fusion?
• Composite Asymmetric Dark Matter with a Dark Photon Portal
• Asymmetric Dark Matter and the hadronic spectra of hidden QCD
• The Thermal History of Composite Dark Matter
• Detecting Composite Dark Matter with Long Range and Contact Interactions in Gas Clouds
• Effective Theory of Flavor for Minimal Mirror Twin Higgs
• Cosmological and astrophysical probes of dark baryons
• Nuclear Fusion Inside Dark Matter
• Dark QCD Matters
• Baryon-Dark Matter Coincidence in Mirrored Unification
• Production of dark-matter bound states in the early universe by three-body recombination
• Etching Plastic Searches for Dark Matter
• Maximally self-interacting dark matter: models and predictions
• Finite-size dark matter and its effect on small-scale structure
• Ultra-Heavy Dark Matter Search with Electron Microscopy of Geological Quartz
• Lattice Gauge Theory for Physics Beyond the Standard Model
• Ultraviolet Completion of a Composite Asymmetric Dark Matter Model with a Dark Photon Portal
• Dark matter concentrations in galactic nuclei according to polytropic models
• New constraints on ultraheavy dark matter from the LZ experiment
• Dark Matter Candidates and Searches
• Indirect Detection of Composite (Asymmetric) Dark Matter
• Cosmological Production of Dark Nuclei
• Astrophysical Observations of a Dark Matter-Baryon Fifth Force
• Origin of nontopological soliton dark matter: solitosynthesis or phase transition
• Towards a Realistic Model of Dark Atoms to Resolve the Hubble Tension
• Mineral Detection of Neutrinos and Dark Matter. A Whitepaper
• Continuum-Mediated Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering
• Directional Detection of Dark Matter Using Solid-State Quantum Sensing
• The Milky Way, Coming into Focus: Precision Astrometry Probes its Evolution, and its Dark Matter
• Self-Destructing Dark Matter
• Searching for Dark Clumps with Gravitational-Wave Detectors
• Perturbative Unitarity of Strongly Interacting Massive Particle Models
• Asymmetric accidental composite dark matter
• Twin Cogenesis
• Stellar Shocks From Dark Matter Asteroid Impacts
• Dark Exoplanets
• Can Tonne-Scale Direct Detection Experiments Discover Nuclear Dark Matter?
• Fireball anti-nucleosynthesis
• Detecting Dark Compact Objects in Gaia DR4: A Data Analysis Pipeline for Transient Astrometric Lensing Searches
• Black Holes from Fermi Ball Collapse
• LHC Lifetime Frontier and Visible Decay Searches in Composite Asymmetric Dark Matter Models
• Baryogenesis and Dark Matter in Multiple Hidden Sectors
• Red-Giant Branch Stellar Cores as Macroscopic Dark Matter Detectors
• Higgs Assisted Q-balls from Pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone Bosons
• IceCube at the Frontier of Macroscopic Dark Matter Direct Detection
• Dark Vector Mesons at LHC Forward Detector Searches
• The role of energy in ballistic agglomeration
• Picolensing as a Probe of Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter
• Detecting gravitational signatures of dark matter with atom gradiometers
• Secluded Dark Composites and Remnant Binding Fields
• Listening for ultra-heavy dark matter with underwater acoustic detectors
• Composite asymmetric dark matter with a dark photon portal: Multimessenger tests
• A Closer Look in the Mirror: Reflections on the Matter/Dark Matter Coincidence
• Probing Dark Matter Clumps, Strings and Domain Walls with Gravitational Wave Detectors
• Dark wounds on icy moons: Ganymede's subsurface ocean as a dark matter detector
• Models of ultra-heavy dark matter visible to macroscopic mechanical sensing arrays