Speaker
Description
In the Dynamical Dark Matter (DDM) framework, the dark sector comprises a large number of constituent particles whose individual masses, lifetimes, and cosmological abundances scale with respect to each other in specific ways. Thus far, DDM model-building has primarily relied on non-thermal mechanisms for abundance generation such as misalignment production, since these mechanisms give rise to appropriate scaling relations between these quantities. In this talk, I will show that an appropriate set of scaling relations for DDM can also arise from thermal freeze-out. Moreover, I shall show that a far broader range of viable scaling relations between dark-matter lifetimes, abundances, and masses can be achieved in thermal DDM scenarios than in the non-thermal scenarios for DDM that have previously been considered. Thus, the extension of the DDM framework into the thermal domain opens up a rich array of new phenomenological possibilities for DDM — possibilities that can be readily probed by canonical detection methods for MeV- to TeV-scale dark-matter candidates.
