Cold Dark Matter from the Hidden Sector

Abstract

Weakly interacting slim particles (WISPs) such as hidden photons (HP) and axion-like particles (ALPs) have been proposed as cold dark matter candidates. They might be produced non-thermally via the misalignment mechanism, similarly to cold axions. In this talk we review the main processes of thermalisation of HP and we compute the parameter space that may survive as cold dark matter population until today. Our findings are quite encouraging for experimental searches in the laboratory in the near future.

Comments: 4pp, 2 figures. Contributed to the 7th Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs and WISPs, Mykonos, Greece 2011