Dark matter self-interactions from spin-2 mediators

Abstract

We propose a new mechanism for rendering dark matter self-interacting in the presence of a massive spin-2 mediator. The derived Yukawa-type potential for dark matter is independent of the spins of dark matter in the leading order of the momentum expansion, so are the resulting non-perturbative effects for the dark matter self-scattering. We find that both the Born cross section and relatively mild resonance effects assist to make the self-scattering cross section velocity-dependent. We discuss how to evade the current indirect bounds on dark matter annihilations and show that the model is marginally compatible with perturbative unitarity in the ghost-free realization of the massive spin-2 particle.

Comments: 19 pages, 4 figures. v2: Expanded discussion on Bethe-Salpeter formalism for a massive spin-2 mediator, Accepted for publication in European Physical Journal C