# Les Rencontres de Physique des Particules 2022

Dec 5 – 7, 2022
Tours
Europe/Paris timezone

## Cosmological implications of photon-flux upper limits at ultra-high energies in scenarios of Planckian-interacting massive particles for dark matter

Dec 6, 2022, 2:00 PM
45m
Amphi E030, bâtiment E2, rez-de-chaussée (Tours)

### Amphi E030, bâtiment E2, rez-de-chaussée

#### Tours

Institut Denis Poisson Université de Tours Facultés des Sciences et Techniques Parc de Grandmont 37200 Tours FRANCE

### Speaker

Olivier Deligny (CNRS/IN2P3 -- IJCLab)

### Description

Instantons can give rise to decay of particles otherwise forbidden. Using data collected at the Pierre Auger Observatory, we present a search for signatures of such instanton-induced decay processes that could be at work for super-heavy particles produced sufficiently during the post-inflationary epoch to match the relic abundance of dark matter inferred today. The non-observation of these signatures allows us to derive a bound on the reduced coupling constant of gauge interactions in the dark sector: $\alpha_X \leq 0.09$, for $10^{9} \leq M_X/{\rm GeV} < 10^{19}$. Conversely, we obtain that, for instance, a reduced coupling constant $\alpha_X = 0.09$ excludes masses $M_X \geq 3\times 10^{13}~$GeV. In the context of dark matter production from gravitational interactions alone, we illustrate how these bounds are complementary to those obtained on the Hubble rate at the end of inflation from the non-observation of tensor modes in the cosmological microwave background.

### Primary author

Olivier Deligny (CNRS/IN2P3 -- IJCLab)

### Presentation materials

 deligny061222.pdf shdm061222.pdf