Studies of a thermally averaged p-wave Sommerfeld factor

Abstract

Thermal pair annihilation of heavy particles, such as dark matter or its co-annihilation partners, can be strongly influenced by attractive interactions. We investigate the case that pair annihilation proceeds through a velocity-suppressed p-wave operator, in the presence of an SU(3) gauge force. Making use of a non-relativistic effective theory, the thermal average of the pair-annihilation rate is estimated both through a resummed perturbative computation and through lattice simulation, in the range M/T∼10...30. Bound states contribute to the annihilation process and enhancement factors of up to ∼100 can be found.