Electroweak Multiplet Dark Matter at Future Lepton Colliders

An electroweak multiplet stable due to a new global symmetry is a simple and well-motivated candidate for thermal dark matter. We study how direct searches at a future linear collider, such as the proposed CLIC, can constrain scalar and fermion triplets, quintets and septets, as well as a fermion doublet. The phenomenology is highly sensitive to charged state lifetimes and thus the mass splitting between the members of the multiplet. We include both radiative corrections and the effect of non-renormalisable operators on this splitting. In order to explore the full range of charged state lifetimes, we consider signals including long-lived charged particles, disappearing tracks, and monophotons. By combining the different searches we find discovery and exclusion contours in the mass-lifetime plane. In particular, when the mass splitting is generated purely through radiative corrections, we can exclude the pure-Higgsino doublet below 310 GeV, the pure-wino triplet below 775 GeV, and the minimal dark matter fermion quintet below 1025 GeV. The scenario where the thermal relic abundance of a Higgsino accounts for the whole dark matter of the Universe can be excluded if the mass splitting between the charged and neutral states is less than 230 MeV. Finally, we discuss possible improvements to these limits by using associated hard leptons to idenify the soft visible decay products of the charged members of the dark matter multiplet.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures; version 2, additional reference

Constraints on Light Magnetic Dipole Dark Matter from the ILC and SN 1987A

To illustrate the complementarity of the linear collider and astrophysics bounds on the light (MeV-scale mass) dark matter (DM), we study the constraints on the magnetic dipole DM from the DM-electron interactions at the proposed International Linear Collider (ILC) and in supernova (SN) 1987A. We in particular focus on the $e^+ e^-$ annihilation which is the common process for producing DM pairs both at the ILC and in the SN. We estimate the bounds on the DM magnetic dipole moment from the mono-photon signals at the ILC and also from the energy loss rate due to the freely streaming DM produced in the SN. The SN bounds can be more stringent than those from the ILC by as much as a factor ${\cal O}(10^5)$ for a DM mass below $10^2$ MeV. For larger DM masses, on the other hand, SN rapidly loses its sensitivity and the collider constraints can complement the SN constraints.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Sterile neutrino dark matter from right-handed neutrino oscillations

We study a scenario where sterile neutrino (either warm or cold) dark matter (DM) is produced through (nonresonant) oscillations among right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) and can constitute the whole DM in the Universe, in contrast to the conventional sterile neutrino production through its mixing with the left-handed neutrinos. The lightest RHN can be sterile neutrino DM whose mixing with left-handed neutrinos is sufficiently small while heavier RHNs can have non-negligible mixings with left-handed neutrinos to explain the neutrino masses by the seesaw mechanism. We also demonstrate that, in our scenario, the production of sterile RHN DM from the decay of a heavier RHN is subdominant compared with the RHN oscillation production due to the X-ray and small-scale structure constraints.Comment: Version to appear in PR

Inflation on Moduli Space and Cosmic Perturbations

We show that a moduli space of the form predicted by string theory, lifted by supersymmetry breaking, gives rise to successful inflation for large regions of parameter space without any modification or fine tuning. This natural realization of inflation relies crucially on the complex nature of the moduli fields and the multiple points of enhanced symmetry, which are generic features of moduli space but not usually considered in inflationary model building. Our scenario predicts cosmic perturbations with an almost exactly flat spectrum for a wide range of scales with running on smaller, possibly observable, scales. The running takes the form of either an increasingly steep drop off of the spectrum, or a rise to a bump in the spectrum before an increasingly steep drop off.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures; Added Fig. 1 and re-emphasis on dynamical selection of desirable initial angles for inflaton modulus. To be published in JHE

Inflation model building in moduli space

A self-consistent modular cosmology scenario and its testability in view of future CMB experiments are discussed. Particular attention is drawn to the enhanced symmetric points in moduli space which play crucial roles in our scenario. The running and moreover the running of running for the cosmic perturbation spectrum are also analyzed.Comment: 5 pages, to appear in PASCOS04 proceeding

21cm forest probes on the axion dark matter in the post-inflationary Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking scenarios

We study the future prospects of the 21cm forest observations on the axion-like dark matter when the spontaneous breaking of the global Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry occurs after the inflation. The large isocurvature perturbations of order unity sourced from axion-like particles can result in the enhancement of minihalo formation, and the subsequent hierarchical structure formation can affect the minihalo abundance whose masses can exceed ${\cal O}(10^4) M_{\odot}$ relevant for the 21cm forest observations. We show that the 21cm forest observations are capable of probing the axion-like particle mass in the range $10^{-18}\lesssim m_a \lesssim 10^{-12}$ eV for the temperature independent axion mass. For the temperature dependent axion mass, the zero temperature axion mass scale for which the 21cm forest measurements can be affected is extended further to as big as of order $10^{-6}$ eV.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, published in PR