Astrophysical constraints on massive unstable neutral relic particles

Dec, 1990
39 pages
Published in:
  • Nucl.Phys.B 373 (1992) 399-437
  • Published: 1992
Report number:
  • CERN-TH-5853-90,
  • CTP-TAMU-96-90,
  • ACT-24

Citations per year

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Abstract: (Elsevier)
There has recently been renewed interest in massive neutral dark-matter particle candidates with masses greater than ∼ 1 TeV which may be unstable. We re-evaluate the constraints on such particles from the possible effects of their decays on the spectrum of the microwave background-radiation and the primordially synthesised abundances of the light elements, from observations of the diffuse gamma-ray background radiation, and from searches for muons and neutrinos in nucleon-decay and cosmic-ray detectors. We find that such unstable neutral relics may well have the cosmological critical density if their lifetime exceeds ∼ 10 16 yr. We illustrate our arguments by applying them to technicolour baryons and to “cryptons” in superstring-inspired models.
  • dark matter
  • neutral particle: massive
  • massive: neutral particle
  • neutral particle: decay
  • decay: neutral particle
  • cosmic radiation: microwaves
  • photon: cosmic radiation
  • light nucleus: production
  • production: light nucleus
  • muon: cosmic radiation