Search

Recent analysis on the stellar kinematics of ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxies has put a stringent upper limit on the self-scattering cross section of dark matter, i.e., $\sigma/m<{\cal O}(0.1)\,{\rm cm^2/g}$ at the scattering velocity of ${\cal O}(10)\,{\rm km/s}$. Resonant self-interacting dark matter (rSIDM) is one possibility that can be consistent with the UFDs and explain the low central densities of rotation-supported galaxies; the cross section is resonantly enhanced to be $\sigma/m = {\cal O}(1)\,{\rm cm^2/g}$ around the scattering velocity of ${\cal O}(100)\,{\rm km/s}$ while being suppressed at lower velocities. To further assess this possibility, since the inferred dark matter distribution of halos from astrophysical observations is usually compared to that in constant-cross section SIDM (cSIDM), whether the structures of rSIDM halos can be approximated by the cSIDM halo profiles needs to be clarified. In this work, we employ the grovothermal fluid method to investigate the structural evolution of rSIDM halos in a wide mass range. We find that except for halos in a specific mass range, the present structures of rSIDM halos are virtually indistinguishable from those of the cSIDM halos. For halos in the specific mass range, the resonant self-scattering renders a break in their density profile. We demonstrate how such a density-profile break appears in astrophysical observations, e.g., rotation curves and line-of-sight velocity dispersion profiles. We show that for halos above the specific mass range, the density-profile break thermalizes to disappear before the present. We demonstrate that such distinctive thermalization dynamics can leave imprints on the orbital classes of stars with similar ages and metallicities., Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures

Cosmological evolution of axion field in the early universe might be significantly affected by a thermal friction induced by the axion coupling to thermalized hidden sector. We examine the effects of such a thermal friction on axion dark matter density and its perturbation when the thermal friction dominates over the Hubble friction until when the axion field begins to oscillate around the potential minimum. We show that in the presence of sizable thermal friction there can be an exponential decay phase of the axion field before the oscillation phase, during which the axion energy density is efficiently dissipated into hidden thermal bath. Consequently, the previously excluded parameter region due to overclosing relic axion density becomes cosmologically viable with thermal friction. In particular, a QCD axion much lighter than $\mu$eV is viable without tuning the initial misalignment angle. We also find that thermal friction can affect the density perturbation of axion dark matter in various ways. For instance, it can alleviate the large-scale isocurvature bound on axion dark matter in the pre-inflationary PQ breaking scenario, which would make the pre-inflationary axion dark matter compatible with high scale inflation over a wide range of model parameters. In the post-inflationary PQ breaking scenario, thermal friction can also significantly change the scaling behavior of axionic strings, and therefore the typical size of the resultant axion miniclusters., Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures; v3: references updated, minor clarifications added, matches the published version

We study the impact of the interaction between DM and the cosmic neutrino background on the evolution of galactic dark matter halos. The energy transfer from the neutrinos to the dark matter can heat the center of the galaxy and make it cored. This effect is efficient for the small galaxies such as the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way and we can put conservative constraint on the non-relativistic elastic scattering cross section as $\sigma_{\chi\nu}\lesssim 10^{-31} {\rm cm}^2$ for 0.1 keV dark matter and 0.1 eV neutrino., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures

We emphasize the distinctive cosmological dynamics in multi-component dark matter scenarios and its impact in probing a sub-dominant component of dark matter. We find that the thermal evolution of the sub-component dark matter is significantly affected by the sizable self-scattering that is naturally realized for sub-${\rm GeV}$ masses. The required annihilation cross section for the sub-component sharply increases as we consider a smaller relative abundance fraction among the dark-matter species. Therefore, contrary to a naive expectation, it can be easier to detect the sub-component with smaller abundance fractions in direct/indirect-detection experiments and cosmological observations. Combining with the current results of accelerator-based experiments, the abundance fractions smaller than $10\,\%$ are strongly disfavored; we demonstrate this by taking a dark photon portal scenario as an example. Nevertheless, for the abundance fraction larger than $10\,\%$, the warm dark matter constraints on the sub-dominant component can be complementary to the parameter space probed by accelerator-based experiments., Comment: 48 pages, 11 figures

We examine the axion emission from supernovae with a complete set of relevant axion couplings including the axion-pion-nucleon contact interaction which was ignored in the previous studies. Two processes are affected by the axion-pion-nucleon contact interaction, $\pi^-+p \rightarrow n + a$ and $n+p\rightarrow n+p+a$, and these processes can be the dominant source of axions for some region in the axion parameter space or in astrophysical conditions encountered inside supernovae. We find that the contact interaction can enhance the axion emissivity of $\pi^-+p \rightarrow n + a$ by a factor of $2-4$, while the effect on $n+p\rightarrow n+p+a$ is not significant. We also discuss the relative importance of other pion-induced processes such as $\pi^0+n\rightarrow n+a$ and $\pi^-+\pi^0\rightarrow \pi^-+a$., Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, v2: minor changes, references updated, appendix added, matches the published version

We study the renormalization group running of axion couplings while taking into account that the Standard Model can be extended to its supersymmetric extension at a certain energy scale below the axion decay constant. We then apply our results to three different classes of axion models, i.e. KSVZ-like, DFSZ-like, and string-theoretic axions, and examine if string-theoretic axions can be distinguished from others by having a different pattern of low energy couplings to the photon, nucleons and electron. We find that the low energy couplings of string-theoretic axions have a similar pattern as those of KSVZ-like axions but yet reveal a sizable difference which might be testable in future axion search experiments. We also note that the coupling of KSVZ-like QCD axions to the electron is dominated by a three-loop contribution involving the exotic heavy quark, gluons, top quark and Higgs field., Comment: 35 pages, 6 figures, v2: references updated, some discussions on RG running scales clarified, matches the published version

We study self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) scenarios, where the $s$-wave self-scattering cross section almost saturates the Unitarity bound. Such self-scattering cross sections are singly parameterized by the dark matter mass, and are featured by strong velocity dependence in a wide range of velocities. They may be indicated by observations of dark matter halos in a wide range of masses, from Milky Way's dwarf spheroidal galaxies to galaxy clusters. We pin down the model parameters that saturates the Unitarity bound in well-motivated SIDM models: the gauged $L_{\mu} - L_{\tau}$ model and composite asymmetric dark matter model. We discuss implications and predictions of such model parameters for cosmology like the $H_{0}$ tension and dark-matter direct-detection experiments, and particle phenomenology like the beam-dump experiments., Comment: 50 pages, 13 figures; discussions improved, figures modified, version accepted in JHEP

Exothermic scatterings of dark matter (DM) produce DM particles with significant kick velocities inside DM halos. In collaboration with DM self-interaction, the excess kinetic energy of the produced DM particles is distributed to the others, which self-heats the DM particles as a whole. The DM self-heating is efficient towards the halo center, and the heat injection is used to enhance the formation of a uniform density core inside halos. The effect of DM self-heating is expected to be more significant in smaller halos for two reasons: 1) the exothermic cross section times the relative velocity, $\left\langle\sigma_{\rm exo}v_{\rm rel}\right\rangle$, is constant; 2) and the ratio of the injected heat to the velocity dispersion squared gets larger towards smaller halos. For the first time, we quantitatively investigate the core formation from DM self-heating for halos in a wide mass range ($10^{9}$-$10^{15}\,{\rm M}_\odot$) using the gravothermal fluid formalism. Notably, we demonstrate that the core formation is sharply escalating towards smaller halos by taking the self-heating DM (i.e., DM that semi-annihilates and self-interacts) as an example. We show that the sharp escalation of core formation may cause a tension in simultaneously explaining the observed central mass deficit of Milky Way satellites, and field dwarf/low surface brightness spiral galaxies. While the details of the self-heating effect may differ among models, we expect that the sharp halo-mass dependence of the core formation is a general feature of exothermic DM., Comment: 6+4 pages, 6 figures

We show that infinitely many of the simply connected 4-manifolds constructed by Levine and Lidman that do not admit PL spines actually admit topological spines., Comment: Final version; to appear in Algebraic & Geometric Topology. 18 pages, 3 figures

The latest Lyman-$\alpha$ forest data severely constrain the conventional warm dark matter solution to small-scale issues in the cold dark matter paradigm. It has been also reported that unconstrained astrophysical processes may address the issues. In response to this situation, we revisit the decaying dark matter solution to the issues, discussing possible signatures to discriminate decaying dark matter from astrophysical processes as a solution to small-scale issues. We consider an axinolike particle (ALPino) decaying into an axionlike particle (ALP) and gravitino with the lifetime around the age of the Universe. The ALPino mass is sub-PeV and slightly ($\Delta m/m\sim 10^{-4}$) larger than the gravitino mass, and thus the dark matter abundance does not alter virtually after the ALPino decays. On the other hand, the gravitino produced from the ALPino decay obtains a kick velocity of $\sim 30 \,{\rm km / s}$, which is sufficiently larger than a circular velocity of dwarf galaxies to impact their dark matter distributions. The Lyman-$\alpha$ forest constraints are relieved since only a small fraction ($\sim10$%) of dark matter experiences the decay at that time. Decaying dark matter is thus promoted to a viable solution to small-scale issues. The ALPino relic abundance is determined predominantly by the decay of the lightest ordinary supersymmetric particle. The monochromatic ALP emission from the ALPino decay is converted to $\sim 50 \,{\rm GeV}$ photon under the Galactic magnetic field. The morphology of the gamma-ray flux shows a distinctive feature of the model when compared to decaying dark matter that directly decays into photons. Once detected, such distinctive signals discriminate the decaying dark matter solution to small-scale issues from unconstrained astrophysical processes., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; discussions improved, version accepted in PRD

It was recently pointed out that semi-annihilating dark matter (DM) may experience a novel temperature evolution dubbed as self-heating. Exothermic semi-annihilation converts the DM mass to the kinetic energy. This yields a unique DM temperature evolution, $T_{\chi} \propto 1 / a$, in contrast to $ T_{\chi} \propto 1 / a^{2}$ for free-streaming non-relativistic particles. Self-heating continues as long as self-scattering sufficiently redistributes the energy of DM particles. In this paper, we study the evolution of cosmological perturbations in self-heating DM. We find that sub-GeV self-heating DM leaves a cutoff on the subgalactic scale of the matter power spectrum when the self-scattering cross section is $\sigma_{\rm self} / m_{\chi} \sim {\cal O} (1) \,{\rm cm}^{2} /{\rm g}$. Then we present a particle physics realization of the self-heating DM scenario. The model is based on recently proposed strongly interacting massive particles with pion-like particles in a QCD-like sector. Pion-like particles semi-annihilate into an axion-like particle, which is thermalized with dark radiation. The dark radiation temperature is smaller than the standard model temperature, evading the constraint from the effective number of neutrino degrees of freedom. It is easily realized when the dark sector is populated from the standard model sector through a small coupling., Comment: 25 pages, 5 figures; minor corrections, version accepted in PRD

The main result of this paper is that any $3$-dimensional manifold with a finite group action is equivariantly, invertibly homology cobordant to a hyperbolic manifold; this result holds with suitable twisted coefficients as well. The following two consequences motivated this work. First, there are hyperbolic equivariant corks (as defined in previous work of the authors) for a wide class of finite groups. Second, any finite group that acts on a homology $3$-sphere also acts on a hyperbolic homology $3$-sphere. The theorem has other applications, including establishing the existence of an infinite number of hyperbolic homology spheres with a free $Z_p$ action that does not extend to any contractible manifold. A non-equivariant version yields an infinite number of hyperbolic integer homology spheres that bound integer homology balls but do not bound contractible manifolds. In passing, it is shown that the invertible homology cobordism relation on $3$-manifolds is antisymmetric., Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures. Version 2: many revisions and corrections

Any two homologous surfaces of the same genus embedded in a smooth 4-manifold X with simply-connected complements are shown to be smoothly isotopic in the connected sum of X and the product of a 2-sphere with itself, if the surfaces are ordinary, and in the connected sum of X with the non-trivial sphere bundle over the sphere if they are characteristic.

The freeze-out of dark matter (DM) depends on the evolution of the DM temperature. The DM temperature does not have to follow the standard model one, when the elastic scattering is not sufficient to maintain the kinetic equilibrium. We study the temperature evolution of the semi-annihilating DM, where a pair of the DM particles annihilate into one DM particle and another particle coupled to the standard model sector. We find that the kinetic equilibrium is maintained solely via semi-annihilation until the last stage of the freeze-out. After the freeze-out, semi-annihilation converts the mass deficit to the kinetic energy of DM, which leads to non-trivial evolution of the DM temperature. We argue that the DM temperature redshifts like radiation as long as the DM self-interaction is efficient. We dub this novel temperature evolution as self-heating. Notably, the structure formation is suppressed at subgalactic scales like keV-scale warm DM but with GeV-scale self-heating DM if the self-heating lasts roughly until the matter-radiation equality. The long duration of the self-heating requires the large self-scattering cross section, which in turn flattens the DM density profile in inner halos. Consequently, self-heating DM can be a unified solution to apparent failures of cold DM to reproduce the observed subgalactic scale structure of the Universe., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. v2: discussed improved, matches published version

Given a simply-connected closed 4-manifold $X$ and a smoothly embedded oriented surface $\Sigma$, various constructions based on Fintushel-Stern knot surgery have produced new surfaces in $X$ that are pairwise homeomorphic to $\Sigma$, but not diffeomorphic. We prove that for all known examples of surface knots constructed from knot surgery operations that preserve the fundamental group of the complement of surface knots, they become pairwise diffeomorphic after stabilizing by connected summing with one $S^2\tilde{\times}S^2$. When $X$ is spin, we show in addition that any surfaces obtained by a knot surgery whose complements have cyclic fundamental group become pairwise diffeomorphic after one stabilization by $S^2\tilde{\times}S^2$., Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures; to appear in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society