Axion dark matter from lepton flavor-violating decays

Paolo Panci (Dipartimento di Fisica E. Fermi, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy; INFN, Sezione di Pisa, Pisa, Italy) ; Diego Redigolo (INFN, Sezione di Firenze, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy) ; Thomas Schwetz (Institut für Astroteilchenphysik, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany) ; Robert Ziegler (Institut für Theoretische Teilchenphysik, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany)

We propose simple scenarios where lepton flavor-violating couplings generate the observed dark matter abundance through freeze-in of an axion-like particle with mass in the few keV range. Compared to flavor-diagonal freeze-in, this mechanism enhances dark matter stability, softens stellar cooling constraints and improves the experimental sensitivity of accelerator-based searches. These scenarios can be tested by future X-ray telescopes, and in some cases will be almost entirely probed by new searches for lepton flavor violation at high-intensity experiments such as Mu3e and MEG II.

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      "value": "We propose simple scenarios where lepton flavor-violating couplings generate the observed dark matter abundance through freeze-in of an axion-like particle with mass in the few keV range. Compared to flavor-diagonal freeze-in, this mechanism enhances dark matter stability, softens stellar cooling constraints and improves the experimental sensitivity of accelerator-based searches. These scenarios can be tested by future X-ray telescopes, and in some cases will be almost entirely probed by new searches for lepton flavor violation at high-intensity experiments such as Mu3e and MEG II."
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Published on:
25 May 2023
Publisher:
Elsevier
Published in:
Physics Letters B , Volume 841 C (2023)

Article ID: 137919
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2023.137919
Copyrights:
The Author(s)
Licence:
CC-BY-3.0

Fulltext files: