2019/01/17 by Mathias Pierre, Pierre, Mathias
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #astro-ph.CO #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1901.05822
PhD Thesis, 273 pages
openalex created_date 2018/10/26 · arxiv created 2019/01/17 · openalex publication_date 2019/01/17 · arxiv updated 2019/01/18 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
One of the most puzzling problems of modern physics is the identification of the nature a non-relativistic matter component present in the universe, contributing to more than 25% of the total energy budget, known as Dark Matter. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are among the best motivated dark matter candidates. However, in light of non conclusive detection signals and strong constraints from collider, direct and indirect detection experiments, this thesis presents constraints on several realizations of the WIMP paradigm in the context of simplified dark matter models. More elaborated models considering extended gauge structures are discussed further on, such as constructions involving generalized Chern-Simons couplings and a specific WIMP scenario motivated by recently observed flavour anomalies related to the RK(*) observable. The second part of this thesis is devoted to the discussion of an alternative dark matter thermal production mechanism where an explicit realization of the Strongly Interacting Massive Particles (SIMPs) paradigm is discussed in the context of a non-Abelian hidden gauge structure. In a last part, the possibility of producing non-thermally a dark matter component via the "freeze-in" mechanism was investigated and the strong impact of the post-inflationary reaheating stage of the universe on such constructions illustrated by the specific case where dark matter density production is mediated by a heavy spin-2 field in addition to the standard graviton.