WIMPZILLAS!

الأصل · EN

There are many reasons to believe the present mass density of the universe is dominated by a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP), a fossil relic of the early universe. Theoretical ideas and experimental efforts have focused mostly on production and detection of thermal relics, with mass typically in the range a few GeV to a hundred GeV. Here, I will review scenarios for production of nonthermal dark matter. Since the masses of the nonthermal WIMPS are in the range 10¹² to 10¹⁶ GeV, much larger than the mass of thermal wimpy WIMPS, they may be referred to as WIMPZILLAS. In searches for dark matter it may be well to remember that ``size does matter.''