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WIMP dark matter and unitarity-conserving inflation via a gauge singlet scalar

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
Article number015
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>9/11/2015
<mark>Journal</mark>Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Issue number11
Volume2015
Number of pages26
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

A gauge singlet scalar with non-minimal coupling to gravity can drive inflation and later freeze out to become cold dark matter. We explore this idea by revisiting inflation in the singlet direction (S-inflation) and Higgs Portal Dark Matter in light of the Higgs discovery, limits from LUX and observations by Planck. We show that large regions of parameter space remain viable, so that successful inflation is possible and the dark matter relic abundance can be reproduced. Moreover, the scalar singlet can stabilise the electroweak vacuum and at the same time overcome the problem of unitarity-violation during inflation encountered by Higgs Inflation, provided the singlet is a real scalar. The 2-σ Planck upper bound on ns imposes that the singlet mass is below 2 TeV, so that almost the entire allowed parameter range can be probed by XENON1T