Speaker
Description
The evidence for dark matter is perhaps of the strongest call for new physics. On top of being desirable from the phenomenological and observational points of views, the possibility of a richer dark sector, that comprises more than one particle, is fairly common in many DM models. The dark particles can enjoy their own hidden forces, which are far less constrained than the interactions between DM and Standard Model (SM) degrees of freedom. Furthermore, the existence of light mediators may affect the DM dynamics in multiple ways. Most notably, whenever DM particles are slowly moving with non-relativistic velocities, light mediators can induce bound states in the dark sector in the early universe and/or in the dense environment of present-day haloes.
From here, the need to tackle and have under control the dynamics of dark matter pairs, that qualify as a typical multi-scale system. We show how pNREFTs can be built for a variety of force mediators, and how bound-state calculations can be then carried out in a very similar way to the ordinary quantum mechanics, however enriched with the full strength of quantum field theory at zero and finite temperature. Our approach is based on the renowned NREFTs of this sort that have been obtained for QED and QCD, and served as precious and handy tools for rigorous and systematic analyses of e.g. hydrogen atom, positronium, heavy quarkonia, heavy-light hadrons or muonic hydrogen.