0000000000236948
AUTHOR
Dan Hooper
showing 8 related works from this author
Updated collider and direct detection constraints on Dark Matter models for the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess
2016
Utilizing an exhaustive set of simplified models, we revisit dark matter scenarios potentially capable of generating the observed Galactic Center gamma-ray excess, updating constraints from the LUX and PandaX-II experiments, as well as from the LHC and other colliders. We identify a variety of pseudoscalar mediated models that remain consistent with all constraints. In contrast, dark matter candidates which annihilate through a spin-1 mediator are ruled out by direct detection constraints unless the mass of the mediator is near an annihilation resonance, or the mediator has a purely vector coupling to the dark matter and a purely axial coupling to Standard Model fermions. All scenarios in w…
The First Three Seconds: a Review of Possible Expansion Histories of the Early Universe
2020
It is commonly assumed that the energy density of the Universe was dominated by radiation between reheating after inflation and the onset of matter domination 54,000 years later. While the abundance of light elements indicates that the Universe was radiation dominated during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), there is scant evidence that the Universe was radiation dominated prior to BBN. It is therefore possible that the cosmological history was more complicated, with deviations from the standard radiation domination during the earliest epochs. Indeed, several interesting proposals regarding various topics such as the generation of dark matter, matter-antimatter asymmetry, gravitational waves,…
A systematic study of hidden sector dark matter: application to the gamma-ray and antiproton excesses
2020
In hidden sector models, dark matter does not directly couple to the particle content of the Standard Model, strongly suppressing rates at direct detection experiments, while still allowing for large signals from annihilation. In this paper, we conduct an extensive study of hidden sector dark matter, covering a wide range of dark matter spins, mediator spins, interaction diagrams, and annihilation final states, in each case determining whether the annihilations are s-wave (thus enabling efficient annihilation in the universe today). We then go on to consider a variety of portal interactions that allow the hidden sector annihilation products to decay into the Standard Model. We broadly class…
Cosmology with a very light Lμ − Lτ gauge boson
2019
In this paper, we explore in detail the cosmological implications of an abelian L − L gauge extension of the Standard Model featuring a light and weakly coupled Z′. Such a scenario is motivated by the longstanding ∼ 4σ discrepancy between the measured and predicted values of the muon’s anomalous magnetic moment, (g − 2) , as well as the tension between late and early time determinations of the Hubble constant. If sufficiently light, the Z′ population will decay to neutrinos, increasing the overall energy density of radiation and altering the expansion history of the early universe. We identify two distinct regions of parameter space in this model in which the Hubble tension can be significa…
Summary of Working Group 4: High Energy Neutrino Telescopes
2007
The field of high-energy neutrino astronomy is rapidly developing. A number of new experiments are currently being deployed and developed. Additionally, the recent successes of TeV gamma-ray astronomy have exciting implications for future neutrino telescopes. Here we will summarize these and other issues as they were discussed in the TeV II workshop's neutrino astronomy working group.
Hidden sector dark matter and the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess: a closer look
2017
Stringent constraints from direct detection experiments and the Large Hadron Collider motivate us to consider models in which the dark matter does not directly couple to the Standard Model, but that instead annihilates into hidden sector particles which ultimately decay through small couplings to the Standard Model. We calculate the gamma-ray emission generated within the context of several such hidden sector models, including those in which the hidden sector couples to the Standard Model through the vector portal (kinetic mixing with Standard Model hypercharge), through the Higgs portal (mixing with the Standard Model Higgs boson), or both. In each case, we identify broad regions of parame…
Toward (finally!) ruling out Z and Higgs mediated dark matter models
2016
In recent years, direct detection, indirect detection, and collider experiments have placed increasingly stringent constraints on particle dark matter, exploring much of the parameter space associated with the WIMP paradigm. In this paper, we focus on the subset of WIMP models in which the dark matter annihilates in the early universe through couplings to either the Standard Model $Z$ or the Standard Model Higgs boson. Considering fermionic, scalar, and vector dark matter candidates within a model-independent context, we find that the overwhelming majority of these dark matter candidates are already ruled out by existing experiments. In the case of $Z$ mediated dark matter, the only scenari…
Probing Planck scale physics with IceCube
2005
Neutrino oscillations can be affected by decoherence induced e.g. by Planck scale suppressed interactions with the space-time foam predicted in some approaches to quantum gravity. We study the prospects for observing such effects at IceCube, using the likely flux of TeV antineutrinos from the Cygnus spiral arm. We formulate the statistical analysis for evaluating the sensitivity to quantum decoherence in the presence of the background from atmospheric neutrinos, as well as from plausible cosmic neutrino sources. We demonstrate that IceCube will improve the sensitivity to decoherence effects of ${\cal O}(E^2/M_{\rm Pl})$ by 17 orders of magnitude over present limits and, moreover, that it ca…