Speaker
Description
QCD-like theories provide a compelling dark matter candidate in the form of dark pions—light particles emerging as Nambu–Goldstone bosons from the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry. The dynamics of dark pions can induce sizeable dark matter self-interactions, potentially alleviating some tensions between simulations of collisionless cold dark matter and observations of dwarf galaxies and other small-scale structures. The introduction of a portal connecting the dark sector to the Standard Model offers additional phenomenological insight. In this talk, I will discuss dark pion self-interactions in halos and examine the implications of explicit portal scenarios, focusing in particular on those involving axion-like particles and sterile neutrinos.