Sommerfeld enhancement of resonant dark matter annihilation

Abstract

The dark matter annihilation cross section can be amplified by orders of magnitude if the annihilation occurs into a narrow resonance, or if the dark-matter particles experience a long-range force before annihilation (Sommerfeld effect). We show that when both enhancements are present they factorize completely, that is, all long-distance non-factorizable effects cancel at leading order in the small-velocity and narrow-width expansion. We then investigate the viability of “super-resonant” annihilation from the coaction of both mechanisms in Standard Model Higgs portal and simplified MSSM-inspired dark-matter scenarios.