Large $N$-ightmare Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper explores a minimal dark QCD sector with a single dark quark flavor, predicting two dark matter candidates whose properties depend on few parameters, and analyzes their relic abundance and observational constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a large-$N$ dark QCD model with two DM candidates and studies their relic abundance, self-interactions, and cosmological constraints.

Findings

The heavy dark baryon can freeze-in independently of the confinement scale.

The light meson-like state can generate DM via cannibalization and freeze-out.

Parameter ranges are identified where the model is consistent with cosmological bounds.

Abstract

A dark QCD sector is a relatively minimal extension of the Standard Model (SM) that admits Dark Matter (DM) candidates but requires no portal to the visible sector beyond gravitational interactions: A "nightmare scenario" for DM detection. We consider a secluded dark sector containing a single flavor of light, vector-like dark quark gauged under $SU(N)$. In the large-$N$ limit, this single-flavor theory becomes highly predictive, generating two DM candidates whose masses and dynamics are described by few parameters: A light quark-antiquark bound state, the dark analog of the $\eta'$ meson, and a heavy bound state of $N$ quarks, the dark analog of the $\Delta^{++}$ baryon. We show that the latter may freeze-in with an abundance independent of the confinement scale, forming DM-like relics for $N \lesssim 10$, while the former may generate DM via cannibalization and freeze-out. We study the interplay of this two-component DM system and determine the characteristic ranges of the confinement scale, dark-visible sector temperature ratio, and $N$ that admit non-excluded DM, once the effects of self-interaction constraints and bounds on effective degrees of freedom at the BBN and CMB epochs are included.