Speaker
Chikako Idegawa
Description
The true identity of dark matter (DM) is an unsolved problem in physics. Among the various DM candidates, weakly interacting massive particles (WIMP) are attractive because their abundance can be explained thermally. The WIMP abundance can be estimated using the Boltzmann equation, and particle masses at zero temperature are usually adopted. In this study, we take into account the electroweak phase transition, i.e., the particle masses should change with temperature through a varying vacuum expectation value of Higgs. We compare the DM abundance obtained using the conventional calculation method with our results using the temperature-dependent particle masses.
