Dilution of dark matter relic density in singlet extension models

Abstract

AbstractWe study the dilution of dark matter (DM) relic density caused by the electroweak first-order phase transition (FOPT) in the singlet extension models, including the singlet extension of the standard model (xSM), of the two-Higgs-doublet model (2HDM+S) and the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model (NMSSM). We find that in these models the entropy released by the strong electroweak FOPT can dilute the DM density to 1/3 at most. Nevertheless, in the xSM and NMSSM where the singlet field configure is relevant to the phase transition temperature, the strong FOPT always happens before the DM freeze-out, making the dilution effect negligible for the current DM density. We derive an analytical upper bound on the freeze-out temperature and a numerical lower bound on nucleation temperature in the xSM. On the other hand, in the 2HDM+S where the DM freeze-out temperature is independent of FOPT, the dilution may salvage some parameter space excluded by excessive DM relic density or by DM direct detections.