Q-ball Decay Research Articles

Impact of Q-balls formed by first-order phase transition on sterile neutrino dark matter

We explore the mechanism that can explain the production of lepton asymmetry and two types of sterile neutrino dark matter. The first type involves heavy sterile dark matter produced directly by the decay of Q-balls which are formed by first-order phase transition in the early universe; the second consists of keV sterile neutrino dark matter, produced resonantly with the aid of lepton asymmetry from Q-ball decay. Besides, gravitational waves from cosmic strings generated during the phase transition process could be detected at future interferometers.

Enhancement of gravitational waves at Q-ball decay including non-linear density perturbations

The existence of a stochastic gravitational wave background is indicated by the recent pulsar timing array (PTA) experiments. We study the enhanced production of second-order gravitational waves from the scalar perturbations when the universe experiences a transition from the early matter-dominated era to the radiation-dominated era due to Q-ball decay. We extend the analysis in previous work by including the frequency range where density perturbations go non-linear and find that the resultant gravitational wave spectrum can be consistent with that favored by the recent PTA experiment results.

Enhancement of second-order gravitational waves at Q-ball decay

The recent observation of 4He favors a large lepton asymmetry at the big bang nucleosynthesis. If Q-balls with a lepton charge decay after the electroweak phase transition, such a large lepton asymmetry can be generated without producing too large baryon asymmetry. In this scenario, Q-balls dominate the universe before the decay and induces the sharp transition from the early matter-dominated era to the radiation-dominated era. In this transition, the gravitational waves (GWs) are enhanced through a second-order effect of the scalar perturbations. We evaluate the density of the produced GWs and show that pulsar timing array observations can probe this scenario depending on the amplitude of the scalar perturbations.

Q-ball decay through A-term in the gauge-mediated SUSY breaking scenario

Q-balls are non-topological solitons whose classical stability is ensured by a global U(1) charge. In particular, Q-balls are produced in the framework of the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis where U(1) charge is the baryon number. Since some type of Q-balls is stable against quantum decay into nucleons, it can work as the dark matter. When the dark matter Q-balls are captured into the neutron star, they absorb the surrounding neutrons and grow to consume all the neutrons, which leads to a stringent constraint on the Q-ball dark matter. However, the Q-ball growth stops due to the U(1) breaking A-term. We revisit the constraint by the neutron star for the gauge-mediation type and the new type Q-ball, and find the allowed parameter space, in which Q-balls work as the dark matter.

Gauged Q-ball decay rates into fermions

We derive the decay rate of a gauged Q-ball into fermions, applying the leading semi-classical approximation. We find that more particles come out from the surface of a gauged Q-ball, compared to the case of a global Q-ball, due to the electric repulsion. We show that, however, the decay rate of a gauged Q-ball is bounded from above due to the Pauli blocking at the surface of the Q-ball, just as in the case of a global Q-ball. We also find that there is a further suppression due to the Coulomb potential outside the Q-ball, which we find to play the role of a potential barrier for the fermions coming from the inside the Q-ball.

Axino dark matter and baryon number asymmetry production by the Q-ball decay in gauge mediation

We investigate the Q-ball decay into the axino dark matter in the gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking. In our scenario, the Q ball decays mainly into nucleons and partially into axinos to account respectively for the baryon asymmetry and the dark matter of the universe. The Q ball decays well before the big bang nucleosynthesis so that it is not affected by the decay. We show the region of the parameters which realizes this scenario.

On the quantum stability of Q-balls

We consider the evolution and decay of Q-balls under the influence of quantum fluctuations. We argue that the most important effect resulting from these fluctuations is the modification of the effective potential in which the Q-ball evolves. This is in addition to spontaneous decay into elementary particle excitations and fission into smaller Q-balls previously considered in the literature, which — like most tunnelling processes — are likely to be strongly suppressed. We illustrate the effect of quantum fluctuations in a particular model ϕ 6 potential, for which we implement the inhomogeneous Hartree approximation to quantum dynamics and solve for the evolution of Q-balls in 3 + 1 dimensions. We find that the stability range as a function of (field space) angular velocity ω is modified significantly compared to the classical case, so that small-ω Q-balls are less stable than in the classical limit, and large-ω Q-balls are more stable. This can be understood qualitatively in a simple way.

Revisiting the gravitino dark matter and baryon asymmetry from Q-ball decay in gauge mediation

We reconsider the Q-ball decay and reinvestigate the scenario that the amount of the baryons and the gravitino dark matter is naturally explained by the decay of the Q balls in the gauge-mediated SUSY breaking. We refine the decay rates into baryons, NLSPs, and gravitinos, and estimate their branching ratios based on the consideration of Pauli blocking. We obtain a smaller branching into gravitinos than the previous estimate, and the NLSPs are more produced by the Q-ball decay. However, the efficient annihilations of NLSPs occur afterward so that their abundance does not spoil the successful BBN and they only produce negligible amount of the gravitinos to the dark matter density by their decay. In this way, we find that the scenario with the direct production of the gravitino dark matter from the Q-ball decay works naturally.

Dark matter gravitinos and baryons via Q-ball decay in the gauge-mediated MSSM

We show that late Q-ball decay in the MSSM with gauge-mediated SUSY breaking can provide a natural source of non-thermal NLSPs which subsequently decay to gravitino dark matter without violating nucleosynthesis constraints. To show this, we perform a global analysis of Q-ball formation and decay in Affleck-Dine baryogenesis for a d = 6 (ucdcdc)2 flat direction of the gauge-mediated MSSM. A general phenomenological potential for the flat-direction is studied and the Q-ball decay properties are obtained as a function of its parameters. The corresponding gravitino mass necessary to account for dark matter is then determined for the case of stau NLSPs. The decay temperature depends on the charge of the Q-balls, which is determined by the fragmentation of the AD condensate. Different fragmentation scenarios are considered, and the final non-thermal NLSP density from Q-ball decay and NLSP annihilation is determined. Particular care is taken to establish that NLSPs from Q-ball decay become homogeneous and non-relativistic prior to annihilation. The gravitino mass necessary for dark matter is naturally consistent with the theoretical gravitino mass in the gauge-mediation model.

Opening the window to the cogenesis with Affleck–Dine mechanism in gravity mediation

The observed baryon and dark matter densities are equal up to a factor of 5. This observation indicates that the baryon asymmetry and dark matter have the same origin. The Affleck–Dine baryogenesis is one of the most promising mechanisms in this context. Q balls, which are often formed in the early Universe associated with the Affleck–Dine baryogenesis, decay both into supersymmetric particles and into quarks. Recently, it was pointed out that annihilation of squarks into quarks gives a dominant contribution to the Q-ball decay rate and the branching ratio of Q-ball decay into supersymmetric particles changes from the previous estimate. In this Letter, the scenario of baryon and dark matter cogenesis from Q ball in gravity mediation is revisited in respect of the improved Q-ball decay rates. It is found that the successful cogenesis takes place when a wino with mass 400–600 GeV is dark matter.

New Q-ball solutions in gauge-mediation, Affleck-Dine baryogenesis and gravitino dark matter

Affleck-Dine (AD) baryogenesis along a d = 6 flat direction in gauge-mediated supersymmetry-breaking (GMSB) models can produce unstable Q-balls which naturally have field strength similar to the messenger scale. In this case a new kind of Q-ball is formed, intermediate between the gravity-mediated and gauge-mediated types. We study in detail these new Q-ball solutions, showing how their properties interpolate between standard gravity-mediated and gauge-mediated Q-balls as the AD field becomes larger than the messenger scale. It is shown that E/Q for the Q-balls can be greater than the nucleon mass but less than the MSSM-LSP mass, leading to Q-ball decay primarily to Standard Model fermions. More significantly, if E/Q is greater than the MSSM-LSP mass, decaying Q-balls can provide a natural source of non-thermal MSSM-LSPs, which can subsequently decay to gravitino dark matter without violating nucleosynthesis constraints. The model therefore provides a minimal scenario for baryogenesis and gravitino dark matter in the gauge-mediated MSSM, requiring no new fields.

Gravitino dark matter and baryon asymmetry fromQ-ball decay in gauge mediation

We investigate the Q-ball decay in the gauge-mediated SUSY breaking. Q balls decay mainly into nucleons, and partially into gravitinos, while they are kinematically forbidden to decay into sparticles which would be cosmologically harmful. This is achieved by the Q-ball charge small enough to be unstable for the decay, and large enough to be protected kinematically from unwanted decay channel. We can then have right amounts of the baryon asymmetry and the dark matter of the universe, evading any astrophysical and cosmological observational constraints such as the big bang nucleosynthesis, which has not been treated properly in the literatures.

Affleck-Dine baryogenesis, condensate fragmentation and gravitino dark matter in gauge-mediation with a large messenger mass

We study the conditions for successful Affleck-Dine baryogenesis and the origin of gravitino dark matter in GMSB models. AD baryogenesis in GMSB models is ruled out by neutron star stability unless Q-balls are unstable and decay before nucleosynthesis. Unstable Q-balls can form if the messenger mass scale is larger than the flat-direction field Φ when the condensate fragments. We provide an example based on AD baryogenesis along a d = 6 flat direction for the case where m3/2 ≈ 2GeV, as predicted by gravitino dark matter from Q-ball decay. Using a phenomenological GMSB potential which models the Φ dependence of the SUSY breaking terms, we numerically solve for the evolution of Φ and show that the messenger mass can be sufficiently close to the flat-direction field when the condensate fragments. We compute the corresponding reheating temperature and the baryonic charge of the condensate fragments and show that the charge is large enough to produce late-decaying Q-balls which can be the origin of gravitino dark matter.

Enhanced Dark Matter Annihilation Rate for Positron and Electron Excesses fromQ-Ball Decay

We show that Q-ball decay in Affleck-Dine baryogenesis models can account for dark matter when the annihilation cross section is sufficiently enhanced to explain the positron and electron excesses observed by PAMELA, ATIC, and PPB-BETS. For Affleck-Dine baryogenesis along a d=6 flat direction, the reheating temperature is approximately 30 GeV and the Q-ball decay temperature is in the range of 10-100 MeV. The lightest supersymmetric particles produced by Q-ball decay annihilate down to the observed dark matter density if the cross section is enhanced by a factor approximately 10(3) relative to the thermal relic cross section.

Entropy production by Q-ball decay for diluting long-lived charged particles

The cosmic abundance of a long-lived charged particle such as a stau is tightly constrainedby catalyzed big bang nucleosynthesis. One of the ways to evade the constraints is to dilutethese particles with a huge entropy production. We evaluate the dilution factor in a casewhere non-relativistic matter dominates the energy density of the universe anddecays with large entropy production. We find that large Q balls can fulfill thisrole; they are naturally produced in the gauge-mediated supersymmetry breakingscenario.

Higgsino and wino dark matter from Q-ball decay in Affleck–Dine baryogenesis

We claim that the higgsino-like and wino-like neutralinos can be good dark matter candidates if they are produced by the late time decay of Q-ball, which is generally formed in Affleck–Dine baryogenesis. The late time decays of the Q-balls into these LSP's and subsequent pair annihilations of the LSP's naturally lead to the desired mass density of dark matter. Furthermore, these dark matter can be much more easily detected by the dark-matter search experiments than the standard bino-like dark matter.

Q-balls and baryogenesis in the MSSM

We show that Q-balls naturally exist in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) with soft SUSY breaking terms of the minimal N =1 SUGRA type. These are associated with the F- and D-flat directions of the scalar potential once radiative corrections are taken into account. We consider two distinct cases, corresponding to the “ H u L ” (slepton) direction with L-balls and the “ u c d c d c ” and “ u c u c d c e c ” (squark) directions with B-balls. The L-ball always has a small charge, typically of the order of 1000, whilst the B-ball can have an arbitrarily large charge, which, when created cosmologically by the collapse of an unstable Affleck-Dine condensate, is likely to be greater than 10 14 . The B-balls typically decay at temperatures less than that of the electroweak phase transition, leading to a novel version of Affleck-Dine baryogenesis, in which the B asymmetry comes from Q-ball decay rather than condensate decay. This mechanism can work even in the presence of additional L violating interactions or B − L conservation, which would rule out conventional Affleck-Dine baryogenesis.