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Fourth Exception in the Calculation of Relic Abundances

Raffaele Tito D’Agnolo, Duccio Pappadopulo, and Joshua T. Ruderman
Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 061102 – Published 8 August 2017
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Abstract

We propose that the dark matter abundance is set by the decoupling of inelastic scattering instead of annihilations. This coscattering mechanism is generically realized if dark matter scatters against states of comparable mass from the thermal bath. Coscattering points to dark matter that is exponentially lighter than the weak scale and has a suppressed annihilation rate, avoiding stringent constraints from indirect detection. Dark matter upscatters into states whose late decays can lead to observable distortions to the blackbody spectrum of the cosmic microwave background.

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  • Received 1 June 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.061102

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Particles & FieldsGravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Raffaele Tito D’Agnolo*

  • Theoretical Particle Physics Laboratory, Institute of Physics, EPFL, Route Cantonale, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland and Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, USA

Duccio Pappadopulo and Joshua T. Ruderman

  • Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA

  • *raffaele.dagnolo@epfl.ch
  • duccio.pappadopulo@gmail.com
  • ruderman@nyu.edu

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Issue

Vol. 119, Iss. 6 — 11 August 2017

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