Domain walls can form after breakdown of a discrete symmetry induced by first-order phase transition, we study the heavy dark matter produced around the temperature of the phase transition that yields the breakdown of a $\mathbb{Z}_{3}$ symmetry. The generated gravitational waves by domain walls decay is found to be able to probed by the Pulsar Timing Arrays, and the future Square Kilometer Array.
In the purely gravitational dark matter scenario, the dark matter particle does not have any interaction except for gravitational one. We study the gravitational particle production of dark matter particle in such a minimal setup and show that correct amount of dark matter can be produced depending on the inflation model and the dark matter mass. In particular, we carefully evaluate the particle production rate from the transition epoch to the inflaton oscillation epoch in a realistic inflation model and point out that the gravitational particle production is efficient even if dark matter mass…
We propose a mechanism of elementary thermal dark matter with mass up to $10^{14}$ GeV, within a standard cosmological history, whose relic abundance is determined solely by its interactions with the Standard Model, without violating the perturbative unitarity bound. The dark matter consists of many nearly degenerate particles which scatter with the Standard Model bath in a nearest-neighbor chain, and maintain chemical equilibrium with the Standard Model bath by in-equilibrium decays and inverse decays. The phenomenology includes super heavy elementary dark matter and heavy relics that decay a…
Gravitational waves signatures from dynamical scalar field configurations provide a compelling observational window on the early universe. Here we identify intriguing connections between dark matter and scalars fields that emit gravitational waves, either through a first order phase transition or oscillating after inflation. To study gravitational waves from first order phase transitions, we investigate a simplified model consisting of a heavy scalar coupled to a vector and fermion field. We then compute gravitational wave spectra sourced by inflaton field configurations oscillating after E-Mo…
An axion rotating in field space can produce dark photons in the early universe via tachyonic instability. This explosive particle production creates a background of stochastic gravitational waves that may be visible at pulsar timing arrays or other gravitational wave detectors. This scenario provides a novel history for dark photon dark matter. The dark photons may be warm at a level detectable in future 21-cm line surveys. For a consistent cosmology, the radial direction of the complex field containing the axion must be thermalized. We explore a concrete thermalization mechanism in detail an…
We consider the simplest possibility for a model of particle dark matter in which dark matter has only gravitational interaction with the standard model sector. Even in such a case, it is known that the gravitational particle production in an expanding universe may lead to a correct relic abundance depending on the inflation scale and the mass of dark matter particle. We provide a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the gravitational particle production of fermionic and vectorial dark matter, and emphasize that particles which are much heavier than the Hubble parameter but lighter than in…
We study the possibility of monopoles serving as dark matter when they are produced during the first-order phase transition in the dark sector. Our study shows that dark monopoles can contribute only a small piece of dark matter relic density within parameter spaces where strong gravitational waves can be probed by ET and CE, and the monopoles can contribute a sizable component of the observed dark matter relic density for fast phase transitions with short duration.
We generalise existing constraints on primordial black holes to dark objects with extended sizes using the aLIGO design sensitivity. We show that LIGO is sensitive to dark objects with radius $O(10-10^3~{\rm km})$ if they make up more than $\sim O(10^{-2}-10^{-3})$ of dark matter.
We consider gravitational wave signals produced by a first-order phase transition in a theory with a generic renormalizable thermal effective potential of power law form. We find the frequency and amplitude of the gravitational wave signal can be related in a straightforward manner to the parameters of the thermal effective potential. This leads to a general conclusion; if the mass of the dark Higgs is less than 1% of the dark Higgs vacuum expectation value, then the gravitational wave signal will be unobservable at all upcoming and planned gravitational wave observatories.
In anticipation of upcoming gravitational wave experiments, we provide a comprehensive overview of the spectra predicted by phase transitions triggered by states from a large variety of dark sector models. Such spectra are functions of the quantum numbers and (self-) couplings of the scalar that triggers the dark phase transition. We classify dark sectors that give rise to a first order phase transition and perform a numerical scan over the thermal parameter space. We then characterize scenarios in which a measurement of a new source of gravitational waves could allow us to discriminate betwee…
Ultra-light primordial black holes with masses $M_{BH}<10^9$~g evaporate before big-bang nucleosynthesis producing all matter fields, including dark matter, in particular super-heavy dark matter: $M_{DM}\gtrsim 10^{10}$ GeV. If the dark matter gets its mass via $U(1)$ symmetry-breaking, the phase transition that gives a mass to the dark matter also produces cosmic strings which radiate gravitational waves. Because the symmetry-breaking scale $Λ_{CS}$ is of the same order as $M_{DM}$, the gravitational waves radiated by the cosmic strings have a large enough amplitude to be detectable across al…
Seeing in the Dark: Gravitational Waves from Resonant Production of Dark Photon Dark Matter
University of California, Riverside(加州大学河滨分校);Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP)(亚太理论物理中心);Institute of Particle and Nuclear Studies (IPNS), High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK)(高能加速器研究机构粒子与核研究研究所);The University of Texas at Austin(德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校);Harvard University(哈佛大学)
We calculate the accurate spectrum of the stochastic gravitational wave background from U(1) gauge fields produced by axion dark matter. The explosive production of gauge fields soon invalidates the applicability of the linear analysis and one needs nonlinear schemes. We make use of numerical lattice simulations to properly follow the nonlinear dynamics such as backreaction and rescattering which gives important contributions to the emission of gravitational waves. It turns out that the axion with the decay constant $f \sim 10^{16}$ GeV which gives the correct dark matter abundance predicts th…
We point out that dark matter which is produced non-adiabatically in a phase transition (PT) with fast bubble walls receives a boost in velocity which leads to long free-streaming lengths. We find that this could be observed via the suppressed matter power spectrum for dark matter masses around $10^8 - 10^9$ GeV and energy scales of the PT around $10^{2} - 10^3$ GeV. The PT should take place at the border of the supercooled regime, i.e. approximately when the Universe becomes vacuum dominated. This work offers novel physics goals for galaxy surveys, Lyman-$α$, stellar stream, lensing, and 21-c…
We propose a scenario that explains the comparable abundances of dark matter (DM) and baryons without any coincidence in the corresponding particle masses. Here, DM corresponds to heavy "dark baryons" in a hidden MSSM-like dark sector, where the supersymmetry breaking scale can be several orders of magnitude larger than in the visible sector. In both sectors a baryon asymmetry is generated via the Affleck-Dine mechanism, and the smaller dark baryon-to-entropy ratio partially compensates the larger dark baryon masses to give similar densities in the two sectors. The large mass hierarchy also na…
Very Heavy and Composite Dark Matter: Theory and Experimental Searches
Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute(阿瑟·B·麦克唐纳加拿大高能粒子物理研究所);Queen’s University(女王大学);Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics(基础物理前沿研究所)
A dark matter overdensity around a black hole may significantly alter the dynamics of the black hole's merger with another compact object. We consider here intermediate mass-ratio inspirals of stellar-mass compact objects with intermediate-mass black holes "dressed" with dark matter. We first demonstrate that previous estimates based on a fixed dark-matter dress are unphysical for a range of binaries and dark-matter distributions by showing that the total energy dissipated by the compact object through dynamical friction, as it inspirals through the dense dark matter environment towards the bl…
We consider the model of composite dark matter assuming stable particles of charge $-2$ bound with primordial helium nuclei by Coulomb force in $O$He atoms. We study capture of such dark atoms in matter and propose a possibility of existence of stable $O$-enriched superheavy nuclei and $O$-nuclearites, in which heavy $O$-dark matter fermions are bound by electromagnetic forces with ordinary nuclear matter. $O$He atoms accumulation in stars and its possible effect in stellar evolution is also considered, extending the set of indirect probes for composite dark matter.
A massive astrophysical object deforms a local distribution of dark matter, resulting in a local overdensity of dark matter. This phenomenon is often referred to as gravitational focusing. In the solar system, the gravitational focusing due to the Sun induces modulations of dark matter signals on terrestrial experiments. We consider the gravitational focusing of a light bosonic dark matter with a mass of less than about 10 eV. The wave nature of such dark matter candidates leads to unique signatures both in the local overdensity and in the spectrum, both of which can be experimentally relevant…
We study the stochastic background of gravitational waves which accompany the sudden freeze-out of dark matter triggered by a cosmological first order phase transition that endows dark matter with mass. We consider models that produce the measured dark matter relic abundance via (1) bubble filtering, and (2) inflation and reheating, and show that gravitational waves from these mechanisms are detectable at future interferometers.
We discuss gravitational waves (GWs) induced by a heavy spectator field that starts to oscillate during inflation. During the oscillation of the spectator field, its effective mass can also oscillate in some potentials. This mass oscillation can resonantly amplify the spectator field fluctuations. We show that these amplified fluctuations can induce large GWs, which could be investigated by future gravitational wave observations. This kind of induced GW can be produced even if the spectator field does not have any interaction with other fields except for gravitational interaction.
We analyze the phase transition in improved holographic QCD to obtain an estimate of the gravitational wave signal emitted in the confinement transition of a pure SU(3) Yang-Mills dark sector. We derive the effective action from holography and show that the energy budget and duration of the phase transition can be calculated with minor errors. These are used as input to obtain a prediction of the gravitational wave signal. To our knowledge, this is the first computation of the gravitational wave signal in a holographic model designated to match lattice data on the thermal properties of pure Ya…
Imprints of Dark Photons on Gravitational Wave Polarizations
Kyoto University(京都大学);Kobe University(神户大学);National Institute of Technology, Tokuyama College(国立技术大学山口学院);Key Laboratory of Dark Matter and Space Astronomy, Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院紫金山天文台暗物质与空间天文重点实验室)
The proposed DarkQuest beam dump experiment, a modest upgrade to the existing SeaQuest/SpinQuest experiment, has great potential for uncovering new physics within a dark sector. We explore both the near-term and long-term prospects for observing two distinct, highly-motivated hidden sector benchmark models: heavy neutral leptons and Higgs-mixed scalars. We comprehensively examine the particle production and detector acceptance at DarkQuest, including an updated treatment of meson production, and light scalar production through both bremsstrahlung and gluon-gluon fusion. In both benchmark model…
Recent pulsar timing data reported by the NANOGrav collaboration may indicate the existence of a stochastic gravitational wave background around $f \sim 10^{-8}$ Hz. We explore a possibility to generate such low-frequency gravitational waves from a dark sector phase transition. Assuming that the dark sector is completely decoupled from the visible sector except via the gravitational interaction, we find that some amount of dark radiation should remain until present. The NANOGrav data implies that the amount of dark radiation is close to the current upper bound, which may help mitigate the so-c…
We consider the direct $s$-channel gravitational production of dark matter during the reheating process. Independent of the identity of the dark matter candidate or its non-gravitational interactions, the gravitational process is always present and provides a minimal production mechanism. During reheating, a thermal bath is quickly generated with a maximum temperature $T_{\rm max}$, and the temperature decreases as the inflaton continues to decay until the energy densities of radiation and inflaton oscillations are equal, at $T_{\rm RH}$. During these oscillations, $s$-channel gravitational pr…
The origin and main properties of new heavy hadrons as dark matter candidates, are represented. Low-energy interactions of new hadrons with leptons and nucleons are described in the terms of effective vertexes. We consider the lowest excited levels of new mesons in the frame-work of the Heavy Quark Effective Theory. The effect of fine and hyper-fine splitting of excited states follows directly from this theory. We analyze phenomenological consequences of this effect as manifestation of dark matter particles.
We study the gravitational production of super-Hubble-mass dark matter in the very early universe. We first review the simplest scenario where dark matter is produced mainly during slow roll inflation. Then we move on to consider the cases where dark matter is produced during the transition period between inflation and the subsequent cosmological evolution. The limits of smooth and sudden transitions are studied, respectively. The relic abundances and the cosmological collider signals are calculated.
We re-examine current and future constraints on a heavy dilaton coupled to a simple dark sector consisting of a Majorana fermion or a Stückelberg vector field. We include three different treatments of dilaton-Higgs mixing, paying particular attention to a gauge-invariant formulation of the model. Moreover, we also invite readers to re-examine effective field theories of vector dark matter, which we show are missing important terms. Along with the latest Higgs coupling data, heavy scalar search results, and dark matter density/direct detection constraints, we study the LHC bounds on the model a…
In the present paper, it is assumed that there exist two species of dark matter: a heavy dark matter particle (HDM) with the mass of O(TeV) which is generated in early universe and a lighter dark matter particle (LDM) which is a relativistic product due to the decay of HDM. HDMs, captured by the earth, decay to high energy LDMs, and these particles can be measured by km$^3$ neutrino telescopes, like the IceCube detector. A $Z^{\prime}$ portal dark matter model is taken for LDMs to interact with nuclei via a neutral current interaction mediated by a heavy gauge boson $Z^{\prime}$. With the diff…
We describe the automation of the calculation of perturbative unitarity constraints including scalars that have colour charges, and its release in SARAH 4.14.4. We apply this, along with vacuum stability constraints, to a simple dark matter model with colourful mediators and interesting decays, and show how it leads to a bound on a thermal relic dark matter mass well below the classic Griest-Kamionkowski limit.
We develop a unified model of darkgenesis and baryogenesis involving strongly interacting dark quarks, utilizing the gravitational anomaly of chiral gauge theories. In these models, both the visible and dark baryon asymmetries are generated by the gravitational anomaly induced by the presence of chiral primordial gravitational waves. We provide a concrete model of an SU(2) gauge theory with two massless quarks. In this model, the dark quarks condense and form a dark baryon charge superfluid (DBS), in which the Higgs-mode acts as cold dark matter. We elucidate the essential features of this dar…