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SIMP Dark Matter
by Yonit Hochberg
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Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Yonit Hochberg |
| Submission information | |
|---|---|
| Preprint Link: | scipost_202203_00039v1 (pdf) |
| Date submitted: | 2022-03-29 13:56 |
| Submitted by: | Hochberg, Yonit |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics Lecture Notes |
| Ontological classification | |
|---|---|
| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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Abstract
These notes summarize the zoom-course on Strongly Interacting Massive Particle (SIMP) dark matter given at the Les Houches Summer School in the summer of 2021. An alternative title for this course would be `SIMPS, Cannibals and ELDERs', where our focus is on high-point interactions amongst dark matter particles. The spirit of the course is to give students a taste of these exciting developments in dark matter, while primarily teaching tricks and methods that are tough to captivate when reading textbooks or papers. These notes are written in similar spirit: I will put emphasis on how quantities scale and how to perform back of the envelope estimates, which should serve to help you when you develop the next great dark matter idea.
Current status:
Reports on this Submission
Report #3 by Anonymous (Referee 3) on 2022-4-8 (Invited Report)
- Cite as: Anonymous, Report on arXiv:scipost_202203_00039v1, delivered 2022-04-08, doi: 10.21468/SciPost.Report.4895
Strengths
These notes are extremely pedagogical and provide a warm welcome into this topic. I will probably refer my own students to these notes in the future.
Report
The notes cover a relevant topic of interest to the community and provide cohesive explanations of the relevant phenomena. Therefore, the acceptance criteria are clearly met and I recommend that these notes proceed through the acceptance process.
Requested changes
My only minor constructive comments are:
1) Since these are notes intended for students, it may be useful to expand the list of references slightly just so that students have links to click and go down the rabbithole if they are confused or want to learn more about a particular statement made in the text or appearing in a plot. I found the current list of references to be somewhat sparse, but that is just my opinion.
2) The only part of the notes that I found a bit unclear or where there could be some expanded commentary was in the cannibals section, where the entropy is computed assuming the cannibals are nonrelativistic. Of course, if things are heating up exponentially, at some point this assumption will cease to be true, and I think this would merit addressing (briefly).
Report #2 by Hyun Min Lee (Referee 2) on 2022-4-6 (Invited Report)
Report
The paper is well written and it would provide a good reference for starting a research on dark matter production in early cosmology. Thus, I recommend a publication of the paper.
Report
This is an exceptionally well-written set of lecture notes, with the main points clearly and elegantly explained with an appropriate dose of humor. The level is entirely appropriate for graduate students, and this set of notes will be an excellent addition to the literature.