Composite Millicharged Dark Matter

Abstract

We study a composite millicharged dark matter model. The dark matter is in the form of pion-like objects emerging from a higher scale QCD-like theory. We present two distinct possibilities with interesting phenomenological consequences based on the choice of the parameters. In the first one, the dark matter is produced non-thermally and it could potentially account for the 130 GeV Fermi photon line via decays of the "dark pions". We estimate the self-interaction cross section which might play an important role both in changing the dark matter halo profile at the center of the galaxy and in making the dark matter warmer. In the second version the dark matter is produced via the freeze-in mechanism. Finally we impose all possible astrophysical, cosmological and experimental constraints. We study in detail generic constraints on millicharged dark matter that can arise from anomalous isotope searches of different elements and we show why constraints based on direct searches from underground detectors are not generally valid.