For reference, here is their article
http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.3727
The SIMPlest Miracle
Yonit Hochberg,
Eric Kuflik,
Hitoshi Murayama,
Tomer Volansky,
Jay G. Wacker
(Submitted on 13 Nov 2014)
It has recently been proposed that dark matter could be a thermal relic of 3-to-2 scatterings in a strongly coupled hidden sector. We present explicit classes of strongly coupled gauge theories that admit this behavior. These are QCD-like theories of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking, where the pions play the role of dark matter. The number-changing 3-to-2 process, which sets the dark matter relic abundance, arises from the Wess-Zumino-Witten term. The theories give an explicit relationship between the 3-to-2 annihilation rate and the 2-to-2 self-scattering rate, which alters predictions for structure formation. This is a simple calculable realization of the strongly-interacting-massive-particle (SIMP) mechanism.
7 pages, 2 figures published PRL(2015) with the title changed to "
Model for Thermal Relic Dark Matter of Strongly Interacting Massive Particles"
http://inspirehep.net/record/1328090?ln=en
It already has 9 citations.
an earlier paper:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1402.5143
The SIMP Miracle
Yonit Hochberg,
Eric Kuflik,
Tomer Volansky,
Jay G. Wacker
(Submitted on 20 Feb 2014 (
v1), last revised 28 Oct 2014 (this version, v2))
We present a new paradigm for achieving thermal relic dark matter. The mechanism arises when a nearly secluded dark sector is thermalized with the Standard Model after reheating. The freezeout process is a number-changing 3->2 annihilation of strongly-interacting-massive-particles (SIMPs) in the dark sector, and points to sub-GeV dark matter. The couplings to the visible sector, necessary for maintaining thermal equilibrium with the Standard Model, imply measurable signals that will allow coverage of a significant part of the parameter space with future indirect- and direct-detection experiments and via direct production of dark matter at colliders. Moreover, 3->2 annihilations typically predict sizable 2->2 self-interactions which naturally address the `core vs. cusp' and `too-big-to-fail' small structure problems.
8 pages, 3 figures; v2: minor updates. Published in PRL(2014) with the title "
Mechanism for Thermal Relic Dark Matter of Strongly Interacting Massive Particles."
http://inspirehep.net/search?p=find+eprint+1402.5143
32 citations
I'm not sure but
think I've seen one or two papers that seen to constrain this idea using observational evidence that DM particles are not strongly self-interactive. Not sure, but it would be worth a look.
Yes here is something:
http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/60874
but it could be wrong. DM could be more self-interactive than those people found.
another:
http://inspirehep.net/record/1381768
another:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.07675
(puts a limit on the self-interaction cross-section)