Hosted by: Xin Qian

There may be a so-far-undiscovered neutral, stable particle composed of 6 quarks, denoted S, with mass m_S ~ 2 m_p. If so, the S is an excellent Dark Matter candidate. More generally, I will discuss how hadronic-strength interaction between DM and baryons can cause local DM to co-rotate with gas and stars, resulting in DM energy deposits below threshold for direct detection. DM-baryon interactions cause rotation curves to reflect baryonic density profiles, as observed in some galaxies, and can help alleviate some of the issues with CDM at small scales. An open question is whether the measured Ly-alpha power spectrum places an upper limit on the DM-baryon cross section, which is sufficiently robust and constraining to rule out the co-rotation scenario. The S-DM scenario suggests a new mechanism for producing the observed baryon asymmetry, and appears capable of naturally explaining the DM to baryon ratio.