6–8 May 2019
University of Pittsburgh
US/Eastern timezone

Deciphering the Archaeological Record: Cosmological Imprints of Non-Minimal Dark Sectors

6 May 2019, 15:45
15m
106 (Lawrence Hall)

106

Lawrence Hall

parallel talk DM I

Speaker

Fei Huang (University of Arizona)

Description

Many proposals for physics beyond the Standard Model give rise to a non-minimal dark sector containing many degrees of freedom. In this talk, we explore the cosmological implications of the non-trivial dynamics which may arise within such dark sectors, focusing on decay processes which take place entirely among the dark constituents. First, we demonstrate that such decays can leave dramatic imprints on the resulting dark-matter phase-space distribution. In particular, this phase-space distribution need not be thermal — it can even be multi-modal, exhibiting a pattern of peaks and troughs as a function of momentum. We then proceed to show how these features can induce small-scale modifications to the matter power spectrum. Finally, we assess the extent to which one can approach the archaeological “inverse” problem of deciphering the properties of an underlying dark sector from the matter power spectrum. Our results therefore provide an interesting way to learn about, and potentially constrain, the features of non-minimal dark sectors and their dynamics in the early universe.

Authors

Fei Huang (University of Arizona) Jeff Kost (University of Arizona) Shufang Su (University of Arizona) Keith Dienes (University of Arizona) Brooks Thomas (Lafayette College)

Presentation materials