Photon proliferation from multi-body dark matter annihilation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Li, Shao-Ping, Xie, Ke-Pan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Li, Shao-Ping
Xie, Ke-Pan
author_facet Li, Shao-Ping
Xie, Ke-Pan
contents Multi-body dark matter annihilation is commonly expected to be suppressed by higher-order couplings and phase-space factors, therefore being ignored thus far. We show that, however, this does not hold for a class of nonthermal dark matter scenarios, where the dark matter particle becomes nonrelativistic at temperatures much higher than its mass. We exemplify such a multi-body process via ultralight pseudoscalar dark matter annihilation to diphotons, which leads to a novel photon proliferation effect in the early Universe. As a phenomenological application, we consider the photon temperature shift after neutrino decoupling, showing that the photon proliferation effect can render bounds on the ultralight dark matter couplings stronger than the existing constraints by several orders of magnitude. Our research can be extended to other interactions and dark matter candidates, highlighting the importance of multi-body processes in the early Universe.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_15749
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Photon proliferation from multi-body dark matter annihilation
Li, Shao-Ping
Xie, Ke-Pan
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Multi-body dark matter annihilation is commonly expected to be suppressed by higher-order couplings and phase-space factors, therefore being ignored thus far. We show that, however, this does not hold for a class of nonthermal dark matter scenarios, where the dark matter particle becomes nonrelativistic at temperatures much higher than its mass. We exemplify such a multi-body process via ultralight pseudoscalar dark matter annihilation to diphotons, which leads to a novel photon proliferation effect in the early Universe. As a phenomenological application, we consider the photon temperature shift after neutrino decoupling, showing that the photon proliferation effect can render bounds on the ultralight dark matter couplings stronger than the existing constraints by several orders of magnitude. Our research can be extended to other interactions and dark matter candidates, highlighting the importance of multi-body processes in the early Universe.
title Photon proliferation from multi-body dark matter annihilation
topic High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.15749