paper

Dark matter relic density in strongly interacting dark sectors with light vector mesons

arXiv:2311.17157 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.110.035009

Abstract

Stable dark matter particles may arise as pseudo-Goldstone bosons from the confinement of dark quarks interacting via a non-Abelian gauge force. Their relic abundance is determined not by annihilations into visible particles but by dark pion number-changing processes within the dark sector, such as . However, if the dark vector mesons are light enough for annihilations to be kinematically allowed, this process dominates and significantly delays freeze-out. As a result, the preferred dark matter mass scale increases and bounds from the Bullet Cluster can be evaded.

10 pages revtex4, 3 figures; v2: additional diagrams included, results updated, conclusions unchanged

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