A Dark Matter Fermionic Quantum Fluid from Standard Model Dynamics

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel dark matter model as a superconducting fermionic fluid arising from Standard Model dynamics, involving neutrino or quark condensates, with implications for cosmology and particle physics.

Contribution

It introduces a new mechanism for dark matter formation via fermionic condensates induced by Standard Model interactions, linking particle physics with cosmological observations.

Findings

Viable dark matter candidates with ultra-light neutrino or quark condensates.

Connection between effective relativistic species and fermion chemical potential.

Implications for the dark matter-baryon density coincidence and Hubble tension.

Abstract

We present a model of dark matter as a superconducting fluid of Cooper pairs of right handed neutrinos or of vector-like quarks. The superconducting dark matter is induced by attractive channels in the Standard Model Higgs and color sectors of the Standard Model, respectively. We show that, for each case, the solution to the gap equation provides viable dark matter candidates for suitable chemical potential values. The mechanism yields an ultra-light neutrino condensate with a mass of $m_{\rm DM} \sim 10^{-19} \text{eV}$ or a vector-like quark condensate with wide range of possible masses. Both cosmological and particle physics constraints on the model lead to a connection between the number of effective relativistic species $N_{\rm eff}$, and the chemical potential and CMB temperature at the time of fermion creation. We also find a relation between the superconducting fermion and baryon densities, with implications for the coincidence between the dark matter and baryon densities in standard cosmology. Given the natural $\text{eV}$ scale of neutrinos, this mechanism may have implications for the Hubble tension.