2014/06/30 by Gordan Krnjaic, Kris Sigurdson · 4 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Age of Information Optimization #Astrophysics #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Big Bang nucleosynthesis #Cosmology #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark energy #Dark matter #Gauge (firearms) #Gauge boson #Gauge theory #Hidden sector #Nuclear physics #Nuclear reaction #Nucleosynthesis #Parameter space #Particle physics #Physics #Population #Quantum chromodynamics #Scalar field dark matter #Standard Model (mathematical formulation) #Statistics #Weakly interacting massive particles #astro-ph.CO #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2015.11.001
published as Physics Letters B (2015), pp. 464-468 · 5 pages, 2 figures, matches journal version. Corrected typos, simplified cross section ansatz, and updated plots for clarity. Essential conclusions unchanged
openalex publication_date 2015/11/06 · arxiv created 2016/02/29 · arxiv updated 2016/03/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In a popular class of models, dark matter comprises an asymmetric population of composite particles with short range interactions arising from a confined nonabelian gauge group. We show that coupling this sector to a well-motivated light mediator particle yields efficient darkleosynthesis, a dark-sector version of big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), in generic regions of parameter space. Dark matter self-interaction bounds typically require the confinement scale to be above ΛQCD, which generically yields large (≫MeV/dark-nucleon) binding energies. These bounds further suggest the mediator is relatively weakly coupled, so repulsive forces between dark-sector nuclei are much weaker than Coulomb repulsion between standard-model nuclei, which results in an exponential barrier-tunneling enhancement over standard BBN. Thus, darklei are easier to make and harder to break than visible species with comparable mass numbers. This process can efficiently yield a dominant population of states with masses significantly greater than the confinement scale and, in contrast to dark matter that is a fundamental particle, may allow the dominant form of dark matter to have high spin (S≫3/2), whose discovery would be smoking gun evidence for dark nuclei.