Secluded Dark Composites and Remnant Binding Fields

TL;DR

This paper explores the formation and potential detectability of secluded dark matter composites, focusing on their cosmological abundance and the possibility of observing associated binding fields as new relativistic species or dark components.

Contribution

It introduces models for secluded dark composites and analyzes the cosmological implications of the binding fields generated during their formation.

Findings

Secluded composite models can produce detectable binding fields.

Binding fields may appear as relativistic species in the early universe.

Secluded composites could contribute to dark matter or dark radiation.

Abstract

Dark matter may freeze-out and undergo composite assembly while decoupled from the Standard Model. In this secluded composite scenario, while individual dark matter particles may be too weakly-coupled to detect, the assembled composite can potentially be detected since its effective coupling scales with number of constituents. We examine models and observables for secluded composites, and in particular we investigate the cosmological abundance of the composite binding field, which is generated during freeze-out annihilation and secluded composite assembly. This binding field could be discovered as a new relativistic species in the early universe or through later interactions as a subdominant dark component.