Speaker
Description
The microphysical properties of Dark Matter (DM), such as its mass and coupling strength, are typically assumed to retain their vacuum values for any given model when considering DM behaviour at a range of scales. However, DM interactions in different astrophysical and cosmological environments are impacted by the properties of the background which in turn can substantially affect both DM production and its detection prospects.. This is particularly true for models where a mixing between DM and another field gives rise to oscillations, such as in the case of sterile neutrinos, dark photons and axions.
In this talk, I will provide an overview of some of these effects when DM is a ROMP ('Rapidly Oscillating Massive Particle'). I will detail a general framework for calculating DM abundance in such a setup, in the presence and absence of a resonance and accounting for the impact of the cosmological plasma. I will discuss the viable parameter space for such a production mechanism and the associated phenomenology.
