Reannihilation of self-interacting dark matter

Abstract

We explore the phenomenology of having a second epoch of dark matter annihilation into dark radiation long after the standard thermal freeze-out. Such a hidden reannihilation process could affect visible sectors only gravitationally. As a concrete realization we consider self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) with a light force mediator coupled to dark radiation. We demonstrate how resonantly Sommerfeld enhanced cross sections emerge to induce the reannihilation epoch. The effect is a temporally local modification of the Hubble expansion rate, and we show that the cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements---as well as other observations---have a high sensitivity to observe this phenomenon. Special attention is given to the model region where late kinetic decoupling and strong self-interactions can alleviate several small-scale problems in the cold dark matter paradigm at the same time. Interestingly, we find that reannihilation might here also simultaneously lower the tension between CMB and low-redshift astronomical observations of ${H}_{0}$ and ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{8}$. Moreover, we identify reannihilation as a clear signature to discriminate between the phenomenologically otherwise almost identical vector and scalar mediator realizations of SIDM.