
JOINT PARTICLE SEMINAR
Date: Wednesday, 2 April 2003
Time: 3:00 p.m.
Place: 4135 Frederick Reines Hall
Speaker: Fumihiro Takayama,
UCI
Title: SWIMPs and
the Early Universe
Abstract: Supersymmetry and
extra dimension models predict the existence of gravitinos and Kaluza-Klein
gravitons, stable massive particles that interact only gravitationally.
These particles are produced by late decays of WIMPs and may be the dark
matter in the present universe. Such superweakly-interacting massive
particles (SWIMPs) are impossible to detect in all conventional dark matter
searches due to the weakness of the gravitational interaction. On
the other hand, precise data from cosmological observations provide a promising
window. We study constraints from BBN, CMB, and diffuse photon observations.
Recent WMAP measurements of the baryon density are in good agreement with
BBN predictions from Deuterium and Helium. On the other hand, the predicted
abundance of Lithium exceeds observed values. We find that late decays
to SWIMPs may explain the Lithium discrepancy.
Host: J. Feng