Gravitational vector Dark Matter

• Main Authors: Christian Gross, Sotirios Karamitsos, Giacomo Landini, Alessandro Strumia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2021-03-01
• Series: Journal of High Energy Physics
• Subjects: Cosmology of Theories beyond the SM; Gauge Symmetry
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP03(2021)174

Abstract A new dark sector consisting of a pure non-abelian gauge theory has no renormalizable interaction with SM particles, and can thereby realise gravitational Dark Matter (DM). Gauge interactions confine at a scale ΛDM giving bound states with typical lifetimes τ ∼ M P 1 4 / Λ DM 5 $$ \tau \sim {M}_{\mathrm{P}1}^4/{\Lambda}_{\mathrm{DM}}^5 $$ that can be DM candidates if ΛDM is below 100 TeV. Furthermore, accidental symmetries of group-theoretical nature produce special gravitationally stable bound states. In the presence of generic Planck-suppressed operators such states become long-lived: SU(N) gauge theories contain bound states with τ ∼ M P 1 8 / Λ DM 9 $$ \tau \sim {M}_{\mathrm{P}1}^8/{\Lambda}_{\mathrm{DM}}^9 $$ ; even longer lifetimes τ = (M Pl/ΛDM)2N−4/ΛDM arise from SO(N) theories with N ≥ 8, and possibly from F 4 or E 8. We compute their relic abundance generated by gravitational freeze-in and by inflationary fluctuations, finding that they can be viable DM candidates for ΛDM ≳ 1010 GeV.