Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: Two leading dark matter candidates from supersymmetry and other theories of physics beyond the standard model are WIMPs and weak scale gravitinos. If the lightest stable particle is a gravitino, then a WIMP will decay into it with a natural lifetime of order a month $\ensuremath{\sim}{M}_{\mathrm{pl}}^{2}/{M}_{\mathrm{weak}}^{3}$. We show that if the bulk of dark matter today came from decays of neutral particles with lifetimes of order a year or smaller, then it could lead to a reduction in the amount of small scale substructure, less concentrated halos and constant density cores in the smallest mass halos. Such beneficial effects may therefore be realized naturally, as discussed by Cembranos, Feng, Rajaraman, and Takayama, in the case of supersymmetry.
Author: Manoj Kaplinghat
Institution: University of California, Irvine
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2091096388