Natural gravitino dark matter and thermal leptogenesis in gauge-mediated supersymmetry-breaking models

Abstract

We point out that there is no cosmological gravitino problem in a certain class of gauge-mediated supersymmetry-breaking (GMSB) models. The constant term in the superpotential naturally causes small mixings between the standard-model and messenger fields, which give rise to late-time decays of the lightest messenger fields. This decay provides an exquisite amount of entropy, which dilutes the thermal relics of the gravitinos down to just the observed mass density of the dark matter. This remarkable phenomenon takes place naturally, irrespective of the gravitino mass and the reheating temperature of inflation, once the gravitinos and messenger fields are thermalized in the early Universe. In this class of GMSB models, there is no strict upper bound on the reheating temperature of inflation, which makes the standard thermal leptogenesis the most attractive candidate for the origin of the observed baryon asymmetry in the present Universe.