Whereas weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) - a promising DM candidate - were intensively studied in the past, the theory of strongly interacting massive particles (SIMPs) has been comparably less investigated.
A possible way to generate such SIMPs is through chiral symmetry breaking. We consider a dark gauge group Sp(4) and N_f=2 fermions in the pseudo-real fundamental representation. We determine the chiral Lagrangian for SIMPs with the inclusion of a mass term and the Wess-Zumino-Witten term for degenerate and non-degenerate flavors. We analyse the breaking patterns and multiplet structure including a coupling to the Standard Model with a dark U(1) sector. The complete model is supported by lattice simulations.
Besides DM, the universe may also be filled in significant number with a new form of relativistic particles, dark radiation, that have escaped detection to date. Assuming dark radiation in form of neutrinos from dark matter decays, one way to look for such particles is to search for nuclear recoil or electron events in direct detection experiments or in future experiments as PTOLEMY. We analyse the sensitivity to dark radiation in such experiments in the presence of irreducible neutrino backgrounds.
Marco Nikolic (HEPHY): Strongly and weakly interacting massive particles
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