Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - WIMP dark matter and unitarity-conserving inflation via a gauge singlet scalar
AU - Kahlhoefer, Felix
AU - McDonald, John
PY - 2015/11/9
Y1 - 2015/11/9
N2 - 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
AB - 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
KW - dark matter theory
KW - inflation
KW - cosmology of theories beyond the SM
U2 - 10.1088/1475-7516/2015/11/015
DO - 10.1088/1475-7516/2015/11/015
M3 - Journal article
VL - 2015
JO - Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
JF - Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
SN - 1475-7516
IS - 11
M1 - 015
ER -