Disformal Dark Matter

Understand

We generalize dark matter production to a two-metric framework whereby the physical metric, which couples to the Standard Model (SM), is conformally and/or disformally related to the metric governing the gravitational dynamics.

• We show that this setup is naturally present in many Ultra Violet (UV) constructions, from K\"ahler moduli fields to tensor-portal models, and from emergent gravity to supergravity models.
• In this setting we study dark matter production in the early Universe resulting from both scatterings off the thermal bath and the radiative decay of the inflaton.
• We also take into account non-instantaneous reheating effects at the end of inflation.