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High Energy Phenomenology Seminar: Rachel Houtz (Durham) "Light Dark Matter through Resonance Scanning"

Event Type
Seminar/Symposium
Sponsor
Department of Physics
Virtual
wifi event
Date
Nov 19, 2021   12:00 pm  
Speaker
Rachel Houtz (Durham)
Contact
Brandy Koebbe
E-Mail
BKOEBBE@ILLINOIS.EDU
Views
8
Originating Calendar
Physics - High Energy Physics Seminar

In this talk I present a model of light dark matter whose relic abundance was set during a period of resonantly enhanced interactions with the Standard Model through the Higgs portal. This is a new application of dark matter with temperature-dependent mass due to a phase transition in the dark sector. During the phase transition, the dark matter mass decreases with temperature and at some point in its cosmological history scans through the Higgs resonance. This reopens the possibility of Higgs portal dark matter with sub-GeV masses observed today, as portal couplings consistent with existing constraints can still be used to reproduce the relic abundance.

 
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