Freeze-In Production of FIMP Dark Matter
ArXiv 0911.1120 (2009)
Authors:
Lawrence J Hall, Karsten Jedamzik, John March-Russell, Stephen M West
Abstract:
We propose an alternate, calculable mechanism of dark matter genesis,
"thermal freeze-in," involving a Feebly Interacting Massive Particle (FIMP)
interacting so feebly with the thermal bath that it never attains thermal
equilibrium. As with the conventional "thermal freeze-out" production
mechanism, the relic abundance reflects a combination of initial thermal
distributions together with particle masses and couplings that can be measured
in the laboratory or astrophysically. The freeze-in yield is IR dominated by
low temperatures near the FIMP mass and is independent of unknown UV physics,
such as the reheat temperature after inflation. Moduli and modulinos of string
theory compactifications that receive mass from weak-scale supersymmetry
breaking provide implementations of the freeze-in mechanism, as do models that
employ Dirac neutrino masses or GUT-scale-suppressed interactions. Experimental
signals of freeze-in and FIMPs can be spectacular, including the production of
new metastable coloured or charged particles at the LHC as well as the
alteration of big bang nucleosynthesis.
