Mesotuned WIMPs and Avoided Deconfinement

TL;DR

This paper explores a nonthermal production mechanism for heavy dark matter particles called mesotuned WIMPs, which can be tested by upcoming astrophysical and direct detection experiments, providing a natural framework consistent with fine-tuning.

Contribution

It introduces the avoided deconfinement model that predicts testable heavy dark matter candidates without dependence on reheat temperature, advancing mesotuned WIMP theory.

Findings

Nonthermal production can account for 10-100 TeV dark matter abundance.

Avoided deconfinement removes reheat temperature dependence.

Predictions are testable at CTA and direct detection experiments.

Abstract

We discuss the production of dark matter with mass of order $10$-$100$ TeV and $\mathcal{O}(1)$ couplings to the standard model, a scenario we refer to as the `mesotuned WIMP'. Given the lack of new physics observed at the LHC, indicating we live in a world with some degree of fine-tuning, this scale is a natural scale to expect new particles to appear. However, dark matter with mass in this range and large couplings is difficult to produce with the observed relic abundance via the usual mechanisms. Here we discuss the nonthermal production of dark matter and show that this mechanism can produce the observed dark matter in this mass range, but requires a specific relationship between the dark matter mass and the reheat temperature. It is shown that the avoided deconfinement model removes the dependence on the reheat temperature and predicts a dark matter candidate that can be tested at the Cherenkov Telescope Array and direct detection experiments, offering a natural setting for mesotuned WIMP dark matter.