TY - JOUR
T1 - Cosmological beam dump
T2 - Constraints on dark scalars mixed with the Higgs boson
AU - Fradette, Anthony
AU - Pospelov, Maxim
AU - Pradler, Josef
AU - Ritz, Adam
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.r(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP .
PY - 2019/4/1
Y1 - 2019/4/1
N2 - Precision cosmology provides a sensitive probe of extremely weakly coupled states due to thermal freeze-in production, with subsequent decays impacting physics during well-tested cosmological epochs. We explore the cosmological implications of the freeze-in production of a new scalar S via the superrenormalizable Higgs portal. If the mass of S is at or below the electroweak scale, peak freeze-in production occurs during the electroweak epoch. We improve the calculation of the freeze-in abundance by including all relevant QCD and electroweak production channels. The resulting abundance and subsequent decay of S is constrained by a combination of x-ray data, cosmic microwave background anisotropies and spectral distortions, Neff, and the consistency of big bang nucleosynthesis with observations. These probes constrain technically natural couplings for such scalars from mS∼10 keV all the way to mS∼100 GeV. The ensuing constraints are similar in spirit to typical beam dump limits, but extend to much smaller couplings, down to mixing angles as small as θSh∼10-16, and to masses all the way to the electroweak scale.
AB - Precision cosmology provides a sensitive probe of extremely weakly coupled states due to thermal freeze-in production, with subsequent decays impacting physics during well-tested cosmological epochs. We explore the cosmological implications of the freeze-in production of a new scalar S via the superrenormalizable Higgs portal. If the mass of S is at or below the electroweak scale, peak freeze-in production occurs during the electroweak epoch. We improve the calculation of the freeze-in abundance by including all relevant QCD and electroweak production channels. The resulting abundance and subsequent decay of S is constrained by a combination of x-ray data, cosmic microwave background anisotropies and spectral distortions, Neff, and the consistency of big bang nucleosynthesis with observations. These probes constrain technically natural couplings for such scalars from mS∼10 keV all the way to mS∼100 GeV. The ensuing constraints are similar in spirit to typical beam dump limits, but extend to much smaller couplings, down to mixing angles as small as θSh∼10-16, and to masses all the way to the electroweak scale.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.99.075004
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.99.075004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85065168704
SN - 2470-0010
VL - 99
JO - Physical Review D
JF - Physical Review D
IS - 7
M1 - 075004
ER -