Theory Group Seminar

Zackaria Chacko, University of Maryland

"Cosmological Signals of a Hidden Dark Matter Sector"

2:00pm, RLM 15.216B

Abstract: I consider a framework in which the relic abundance of dark matter is set, not by annihilation into Standard Model particles, but by annihilation into massless states in a dark sector. I show that this scenario leads to signals in the cosmic microwave background, and may also have effects on large scale structure. I explain how this class of theories can provide a resolution for two cosmological puzzles, the H_0 problem and the sigma_8 problem.