Dark Matter Freeze-out during $\mathrm{SU}(2)_{\rm L}$ Confinement

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel dark matter production mechanism involving the confinement of the weak sector in the Standard Model, leading to dark pions that freeze out and match observed relic densities.

Contribution

It introduces a new scenario where dark matter arises from weak sector confinement, with detailed analysis of the confinement scale and relic abundance.

Findings

Weak confinement scale estimated at ~700 TeV for TeV-scale fermions.

Dark pions freeze out before deconfinement, setting relic abundance.

Parameter space evades current detection and collider bounds.

Abstract

We explore the possibility that dark matter is a pair of vector-like fermionic $\mathrm{SU}(2)_{\rm L}$ doublets and propose a novel mechanism of dark matter production that proceeds through the confinement of the weak sector of the Standard Model. This confinement phase causes the Standard Model doublets and dark matter to confine into pions. The dark pions freeze-out before the weak sector deconfines and generate a relic abundance of dark matter. We solve the Boltzmann equations for this scenario to determine the scale of confinement and constituent dark matter mass required to produce the observed relic density. We determine which regions of this parameter space evade direct detection, collider bounds, and successfully produce the observed relic density of dark matter. For a TeV scale pair of vector-like fermionic $\mathrm{SU}(2)_{\rm L}$ doublets, we find the weak confinement scale to be $\sim 700$ TeV.