Branon dark matter

Cembranos, J. A. R.; Dobado, A.; Maroto, A. L.

Branon dark matter

Authors

Cembranos, J. A. R.

Dobado, A.

Maroto, A. L.

Description

In the brane-world scenario, our universe is understood as a three dimensional hypersurface embedded in a higher dimensional space-time. The fluctuations of the brane along the extra dimensions are seen from the four-dimensional point of view as new fields whose properties are determined by the geometry of the extra space. We show that such branon fields can be massive, stable and weakly interacting, and accordinlgy they are natural candidates to explain the universe missing mass problem. We also consider the possibility of producing branons non-thermally and their relevance in the cosmic coincidence problem. Finally we show that some of the branon distinctive signals could be detected in future colliders and in direct or indirect dark matter searches.
4 pages, 1 figure. To be published in the Proceedings of the XXXIX Rencontres de Moriond 'Exploring the Universe' (March 28-April 04, 2004, La Thuile, Italy)