Symmetric tensor portals to dark matter I: Creation of dark scalars

Abstract

We examine the creation of scalar dark matter through a symmetric tensor portal. We find that both freeze-in and thermal freeze-out through a symmetric tensor mediator can create scalar dark matter. The required tensor masses for freeze-in are much larger than for freeze-out for the same dark-matter mass, in agreement with the nonthermalization assumption in freeze-in scenarios.

Comments: 6 pages, 8 figures. V2: Corrected captions for Figs. 5-8