Speaker: Katelin Schutz
Title: Making dark matter out of light: the cosmology of sub-MeV freeze-in
Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/186024391
Abstract:
Dark matter could be a “thermal-ish" relic of freeze-in, where the dark matter is produced by extremely feeble interactions with Standard Model particles dominantly at low temperatures. In this talk, I will discuss how sub-MeV dark matter can be made through freeze-in, accounting for a dominant channel where the dark matter gets produced by the decay of plasmons (photons that have an in-medium mass in the primordial plasma of our Universe). I will also explain how the resulting non-thermal dark matter velocity distribution can impact cosmological observables.
Description:
Martin Luther King Day
User:
High-Energy Seminars
Time:
1:30pm - 2:30pm
Send Reminder:
Yes - 0 days 8 hour 0 minutes before start
Description:
Speaker: Ofri Telem (Berkeley)
Title: Amplitudes for Monopoles
Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/186024391
Host: John Terning
Abstract: On-shell methods are particularly suited for exploring the scattering of electrically and magnetically charged objects, for which there is no local and Lorentz invariant Lagrangian description. We show how to construct a Lorentz-invariant S-matrix for the scattering of electrically and magnetically charged particles, without ever having to refer to a Dirac string. A key ingredient is a revision of our fundamental understanding of multi particle representations of the Poincaré group. Surprisingly, the asymptotic states for electric magnetic scattering transform with an additional little group phase, associated with pairs of electrically and magnetically charged particles. The corresponding “pairwise helicity” is identified with the quantized “cross product” of charges, e_1g_2 − e_2g_1, for every charge-monopole pair, and represents the extra angular momentum stored in the asymptotic electromagnetic field. We define a new kind of pairwise spinor-helicity variable, which serves as an additional building block for electric magnetic scattering amplitudes. We then construct the most general 3-point S-matrix elements, as well as the full partial wave decomposition for the 2 to 2 fermion-monopole S-matrix. In particular, we derive the famous helicity flip in the lowest partial wave as a simple consequence of a generalized spin-helicity selection rule, as well as the full angular dependence for the higher partial waves. Our construction provides a significant new achievement for the on-shell program, succeeding where the Lagrangian description has so far failed.