Superheavy Dark Matter and Thermal Inflation

TL;DR

This paper explores how superheavy particles produced during thermal inflation could constitute dark matter and potentially explain ultra high-energy cosmic rays, highlighting a viable mass range and long lifetime.

Contribution

It demonstrates that superheavy particles with masses around 10^{12} to 10^{14} GeV can be relics of thermal inflation and serve as dark matter candidates.

Findings

Superheavy dark matter particles of mass ~10^{13} GeV are viable.

Long-lived particles can account for ultra high-energy cosmic rays.

Thermal inflation naturally produces relic superheavy particles.

Abstract

The thermal inflation is the most plausible mechanism that solves the cosmological moduli problem naturally. We discuss relic abundance of superheavy particle $X$ in the presence of the thermal inflation assuming that its lifetime is longer than the age of the universe, and show that the long-lived particle $X$ of mass $10^{12}$--$10^{14}$ GeV may form a part of the dark matter in the present universe in a wide region of parameter space of the thermal inflation model. The superheavy dark matter of mass $\sim 10^{13}$ GeV may be interesting in particular, since its decay may account for the observed ultra high-energy cosmic rays if the lifetime of the $X$ particle is sufficiently long.