The Role of Electroweak Corrections for the Dark Matter Relic Abundance

TL;DR

This paper investigates how electroweak infrared corrections impact the accuracy of dark matter relic abundance calculations, emphasizing the importance of including these effects for precise cosmological predictions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed computation of electroweak logarithmic corrections to dark matter annihilation cross sections, highlighting their significance in relic abundance estimates.

Findings

Infrared logs significantly affect annihilation cross sections.

Including final state W processes alters cross section calculations.

Electroweak corrections are essential for precise relic abundance predictions.

Abstract

We analyze the validity of the theorems concerning the cancellation of the infrared and collinar divergences in the case of dark matter freeze-out in the early universe. In particular, we compute the electroweak logarithmic corrections of infrared origin to the annihilation cross section of a dark matter particle being the neutral component of a SU(2)_L multiplet. The inclusion of processes with final state W can modify significantly the cross sections computed with only virtual W exchange. Our results show that the inclusion of infrared logs is necessary for a precise computation of the dark matter relic abundance.