Josh Ruderman, NYU [Joint BNL/SBU HET Seminar at YITP, Stony Brook], Origins of Nonthermal Dark Matter

Thursday 24 Apr 2025, 14:00 → 15:30 US/Eastern

YITP-SBU (https://stonybrook.zoom.us/j/99130867192?pwd=gXAErW2ySrDwl3p8EE98TkL7m6PWA6.1)

What is the cosmological origin of dark matter?  Dark matter may be a thermal relic, with sizable interactions and an equilibrium initial condition.  Alternatively, dark matter may have feeble interactions and have never reached equilibrium (as for example in "freeze in" models).  In this talk I will discuss some recent ideas for how dark matter could have been produced nonthermally.  I will introduce classes of models where dark matter is produced by oscillations, or by a period of exponential growth.