Are Heavy Particles Boltzmann Suppressed?

dc.creatorBucci, P.
dc.creatorPietroni, M.
dc.date2001-11-28
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T03:45:58Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T03:45:58Z
dc.descriptionMatsumoto and Yoshimura have recently argued that the number density of heavy particles in a thermal bath is not necessarily Boltzmann-suppressed for T<<M, as power law corrections may emerge at higher orders in perturbation theory. This fact might have important implications on the determination of WIMP relic densities. On the other hand, the definition of number densities in a interacting theory is not a straightforward procedure. It usually requires renormalization of composite operators and operator mixing, which obscure the physical interpretation of the computed thermal average. We propose a new definition for the thermal average of a composite operator, which does not require any new renormalization counterterm and is thus free from such ambiguities. Applying this definition to the annihilation model of Matsumoto and Yoshimura we find that it gives number densities which are Boltzmann-suppressed at any order in perturbation theory. We discuss also heavy particles which are unstable already at T=0, showing that power law corrections do in general emerge in this case.
dc.description12 pages, 4 figures, LaTeX. Talk given at COSMO-01 Workshop, Rovaniemi, Finland, August 29 - September 4, 2001
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0111375
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0111375
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/41120
dc.subjectHigh Energy Physics - Phenomenology
dc.titleAre Heavy Particles Boltzmann Suppressed?
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