On Thermal Gravitational Contribution to Particle Production and Dark Matter

We investigate the particle production from thermal gravitational annihilation in the very early universe, which is an important contribution for particles that might not be in thermal equilibrium or/and only have gravitational interaction, such as dark matter (DM). For particles with spin 0, 1/2 and 1 we calculate the relevant cross sections through gravitational annihilation and give the analytic formulas with full mass-dependent terms. We find that DM with mass between TeV and $10^{16}$GeV could have the relic abundance that fits the observation, with small dependence on its spin. We also discuss the effects of gravitational annihilation from inflatons. Interestingly, contributions from inflatons could be dominant and have the same power dependence on Hubble parameter of inflation as that from vacuum fluctuation. Also, fermion production from inflatons, in comparison to boson, is suppressed by its mass due to helicity selection.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures and 2 tables, published versio

Pure Gravitational Dark Matter, Its Mass and Signatures

In this study, we investigate a scenario that dark matter (DM) has only gravitational interaction. In the framework of effective field theory of gravity, we find that DM is still stable at tree level even if there is no symmetry to protect its longevity, but could decay into standard model particles due to gravitational loop corrections. The radiative corrections can lead to both higher- and lower-dimensional effective operators. We also first explore how DM can be produced in the early universe. Through gravitational interaction at high temperature, DM is then found to have mass around TeV $\lesssim m_X \lesssim 10^{11}$GeV to get the right relic abundance. When DM decays, it mostly decays into gravitons, which could be tested by current and future CMB experiments. We also estimate the resulting fluxes for cosmic rays, gamma-ray and neutrino.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Inflation in gauge theory of gravity with local scaling symmetry and quantum induced symmetry breaking

Motivated by the gauge theory of gravity with local scaling symmetry proposed recently in 1712.04537 and 1506.01807, we investigate whether the scalar field therein can be responsible for the inflation. We show that the classical theory would suffer from the difficulty that inflation can start but will never stop. We explore possible solutions by invoking the symmetry breaking through quantum effects. The effective potential of the scalar field is shown to have phenomenologically interesting forms to give viable inflation models. The predictions of physical observables agree well with current cosmological measurements and can be further tested in future experiments searching for primordial gravitational waves.Comment: 1+14 pages, 3 figures, discussions and references updated, published versio

Weyl Scaling Invariant R2R^2 Gravity for Inflation and Dark Matter

Inflation in the early universe can generate the nearly conformal invariant fluctuation that leads to the structures we observe at the present. The simple viable Starobinsky $R^2$ inflation has an approximate global scale symmetry. We study the conformal symmetric Weyl $\hat{R}^2$ and general $F(\hat{R})$ theories and demonstrate their equivalence to Einstein gravity coupled with a scalar and a Weyl gauge field. The scalar field in Weyl $\hat{R}^2$ gravity can be responsible for inflation with Starobinsky model as the attractor, potentially distinguishable from the latter by future experiments. The intrinsic Weyl gauge boson becomes massive once the Einstein frame is fixed, and constitutes as a dark matter candidate with mass up to $\sim 5\times 10^{16}$GeV.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures; discussion about Higgs boson is included. Accepted version by PL

W±H∓W^{\pm}H^{\mp} associated production at LHC in the general 2HDM with Spontaneous CP Violation

Spontaneous CP violation motivates the introduction of two Higgs doublets in the electroweak theory. Such a simple extension of the standard model has three neutral Higgs bosons and a pair charged Higgs, especially it leads to rich CP-violating sources including the induced Kobayashi-Maskawa CP-violating phase, the mixing of the neutral Higgs bosons due to the CP-odd Higgs and the effective complex Yukawa couplings of the charged and neutral Higgs bosons. Within this model, we present the production of a charged Higgs boson in association with a W boson at the LHC, and calculate in detail the cross section and the transverse momentum distribution of the associated W boson.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, omitted 3 figures, motivations for Type III 2HDM with SCPV is emphasized, to be published in PR