Hypercharged Dark Matter and Direct Detection as a Probe of Reheating

Understand

The lack of new physics at the LHC so far weakens the argument for TeV scale thermal dark matter.

• On the other hand, heavier, non-thermal dark matter is generally difficult to test experimentally.
• Here we consider the interesting and generic case of hypercharged dark matter, which can allow for heavy dark matter masses without spoiling testability.
• Planned direct detection experiments will be able to see a signal for masses up to an incredible $10^{10}$ GeV, and this can further serve to probe the reheating temperature up to about $10^9$ GeV, as determined by the non-thermal dark matter relic abundance.