Speaker
Description
Rapidly Oscillating Massive Particles (ROMPs) arise in quantum systems with non-diagonal interaction mass matrices. This misalignment between flavor and mass eigenstates leads to oscillations such as those between electron and muon neutrinos in the Standard Model, or between active and sterile neutrinos in Beyond the Standard Model frameworks to name just a few examples. In this talk, I will discuss the general framework for dark matter production via oscillations. I will focus on ROMP systems where one flavor state, chi, is weakly coupled to the Standard Model (and hence a good dark matter candidate) and the second flavor state, psi, is strongly coupled to the Standard Model such that psi oscillations to chi in the early universe can efficiently produce chi as the dark matter. I will discuss how oscillations, scatterings, thermal masses, and resonances all play a role to give ROMPs a rich cosmology.
