No Arabic abstract
We propose further tests of the assumption that the mass of the heavy standard particles ($Z,W,t,...$) arises from a special coupling with dark matter. We look for effects of new interactions due to dark matter exchanges between heavy particles in several $e^+e^-$ and hadronic collision processes.
We propose deeper tests of the existence of DM interactions between heavy particles in $e^+e^-to tbar t, ZZ, W^+W^-$ by looking at the effects on final state polarization. We show that indeed $t$, $W$ and $Z$ polarization are particularly sensitive to the structure of these interactions, to their relation with the origin of the masses and to the quantum numbers of the possibly exchanged dark particles.
The cosmic radio-frequency spectrum is expected to show a strong absorption signal corresponding to the 21-centimetre-wavelength transition of atomic hydrogen around redshift 20, which arises from Lyman-alpha radiation from some of the earliest stars. By observing this 21-centimetre signal - either its sky-averaged spectrum or maps of its fluctuations, obtained using radio interferometers - we can obtain information about cosmic dawn, the era when the first astrophysical sources of light were formed. The recent detection of the global 21-centimetre spectrum reveals a stronger absorption than the maximum predicted by existing models, at a confidence level of 3.8 standard deviations. Here we report that this absorption can be explained by the combination of radiation from the first stars and excess cooling of the cosmic gas induced by its interaction with dark matter. Our analysis indicates that the spatial fluctuations of the 21-centimetre signal at cosmic dawn could be an order of magnitude larger than previously expected and that the dark-matter particle is no heavier than several proton masses, well below the commonly predicted mass of weakly interacting massive particles. Our analysis also confirms that dark matter is highly non-relativistic and at least moderately cold, and primordial velocities predicted by models of warm dark matter are potentially detectable. These results indicate that 21-centimetre cosmology can be used as a dark-matter probe.
Once dark matter has been discovered and its particle physics properties have been determined, a crucial question rises concerning how it was produced in the early Universe. If its thermally averaged annihilation cross section is in the ballpark of few$times 10^{-26}$ cm$^3$/s, the WIMP mechanism in the standard cosmological scenario (i.e. radiation dominated Universe) will be highly favored. If this is not the case one can either consider an alternative production mechanism, or a non-standard cosmology. Here we study the dark matter production in scenarios with a non-standard expansion history. Additionally, we reconstruct the possible non-standard cosmologies that could make the WIMP mechanism viable.
We discuss novel ways in which neutrino oscillation experiments can probe dark matter. In particular, we focus on interactions between neutrinos and ultra-light (fuzzy) dark matter particles with masses of order $10^{-22}$ eV. It has been shown previously that such dark matter candidates are phenomenologically successful and might help ameliorate the tension between predicted and observed small scale structures in the Universe. We argue that coherent forward scattering of neutrinos on fuzzy dark matter particles can significantly alter neutrino oscillation probabilities. These effects could be observable in current and future experiments. We set new limits on fuzzy dark matter interacting with neutrinos using T2K and solar neutrino data, and we estimate the sensitivity of reactor neutrino experiments and of future long-baseline accelerator experiments. These results are based on detailed simulations in GLoBES. We allow the dark matter particle to be either a scalar or a vector boson. In the latter case, we find potentially interesting connections to models addressing various $B$ physics anomalies.
We apply a parametric reconstruction method to a homogeneous, isotropic and spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmological model filled of a fluid of dark energy (DE) with constant equation of state parameter interacting with dark matter (DM). The reconstruction method is based on expansions of the general interaction term and the relevant cosmological variables in terms of Chebyshev polynomials which form a complete set orthonormal functions. This interaction term describes an exchange of energy flow between the DE and DM within dark sector. To show how the method works we do the reconstruction of the interaction function expanding it in terms of only the first three Chebyshev polynomials and obtain the best estimation for the coefficients of the expansion as well as for the DE equation of the state constant parameter w using the type Ia Supernova SCP Union data set (307 SNe-Ia). The preliminary reconstruction shows that in the best scenario there is an energy transfer from DM to DE which worsen the problem of the cosmic coincidence in comparison with the LCDM model. We conclude that this fact is an indication of a serious drawback for the existence of such interaction between dark components.