Eric David Kramer

Eric David Kramer
Eric David Kramer
Papers published in Physical Review Letters, a collaboration between Hebrew University, Tel-Aviv University, and New York University
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Zuckerman Postdoctoral Scholar Alumnus, Eric David Kramer, in collaboration with researchers at the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University and New York University, publish new research in Physical Review Letters “Heavy Thermal Dark Matter from a New Collision Mechanism.”

Paper Abstract:
We propose a new thermal freeze-out mechanism that results in dark matter masses exceeding the unitarity bound by many orders of magnitude, without violating perturbative unitarity or modifying the standard cosmology. The process determining the relic abundance is χζ†→ζζ, where χ is the dark matter candidate. For mζ<mχ<3mζ, χ is cosmologically long-lived and scatters against the exponentially more abundant ζ. Therefore, such a process allows for exponentially heavier dark matter for the same interaction strength as a particle undergoing ordinary 2→2 freeze-out, or equivalently, exponentially weaker interactions for the same mass. We demonstrate this mechanism in a leptophilic dark matter model, which allows for dark matter masses up to 109  GeV.