Perturbative resonance in WIMP paradigm and its cosmological implications on cosmic reheating and primordial gravitational wave detection

Abstract

We investigate the co-evolution of dark matter (DM) density perturbation and metric perturbation in the WIMP paradigm. Instead of adopting the conventional assumption that DM starts out in thermal equilibrium, we propose a simple phase of DM production for the WIMP paradigm and extend our analysis to this phase. Being free from the envelop of thermal equilibrium, an amplified perturbative resonance between DM density perturbation and scalar modes of metric perturbation takes place during the DM production phase, and consequently results in a suppression of the tensor-to-scalar ratio of metric perturbation. By specifying the cosmic background with a typical realization of cosmic reheating, we establish a relation between DM particle mass m χ and the tensor-to-scalar ratio r in the WIMP paradigm, which also contains two reheating parameters, the reheating temperature T R f and the dissipative constant Γ 0 . Notably, for a sizeable parameter region of WIMP candidate and cosmic reheating, this relation predicts a smaller value of r in comparing with the conventional expectation obtained by assuming DM starts out in thermal equilibrium. Once the suppression of r is measured in future observations of primordial gravitational wave in CMB, this relation can be used to constrain m χ , T R f and Γ 0 in principle.