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Published May 2012 | Submitted
Journal Article Open

Oscillating asymmetric dark matter

Abstract

We study the dynamics of dark matter (DM) particle-antiparticle oscillations within the context of asymmetric DM. Oscillations arise due to small DM number-violating Majorana-type mass terms, and can lead to recoupling of annihilation after freeze-out and washout of the DM density. Asymmetric DM oscillations "interpolate" between symmetric and asymmetric DM freeze-out scenarios, and allow for a larger DM model-building parameter space. We derive the density matrix equations for DM oscillations and freeze-out from first principles using nonequilibrium field theory, and our results are qualitatively different than in previous studies. DM dynamics exhibits particle-vs-antiparticle "flavor" effects, depending on the interaction type, analogous to neutrino oscillations in a medium. "Flavor-sensitive" DM interactions include scattering or annihilation through a new vector boson, while "flavor-blind" interactions include scattering or s-channel annihilation through a new scalar boson. In particular, we find that flavor-sensitive annihilation does not recouple when coherent oscillations begin, and that flavor-blind scattering does not lead to decoherence.

Additional Information

© 2012 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab srl. Received February 13, 2012. Revised April 10, 2012. Accepted April 11, 2012. Published May 14, 2012. We thank B. Garbrecht, J. Kearney, S. Profumo, G. Servant and T. Volansky for helpful discussions. ST would also like to thank V. Cirigliano, C. Lee, and M. Ramsey-Musolf for collaboration on density matrix equations in the CTP formalism. HBY and KZ are supported by NSF CAREER award PHY1049896 and by NASA Astrophysics Theory grant NNX11AI17G. ST is supported by DOE Grant #DE-FG02-95ER40899.

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