# Thermal Relic Targets with Exponentially Small Couplings

## TL;DR

This paper explores how dark matter produced via inelastic scattering with lighter particles can have exponentially smaller couplings than traditional annihilation-based production, opening new detection targets.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism for dark matter production through inelastic scattering, expanding the range of possible thermal relic targets with smaller couplings.

## Key findings

- Inelastic scattering allows for exponentially smaller couplings.
- Dark matter produced by inelastic scattering against electrons offers new detection targets.
- This mechanism broadens the scope of thermal relic dark matter models.

## Abstract

If dark matter was produced in the early Universe by the decoupling of its annihilations into known particles, there is a sharp experimental target for the size of its coupling. We show that if dark matter was produced by inelastic scattering against a lighter particle from the thermal bath, then its coupling can be exponentially smaller than the coupling required for its production from annihilations. As an application, we demonstrate that dark matter produced by inelastic scattering against electrons provides new thermal relic targets for direct detection and fixed target experiments.