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BBN constraints on the hadronic annihilation of sub-GeV dark matter

Afif Omar1,2,* and Adam Ritz1,†

  • 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia V8P 5C2, Canada
  • 2TRIUMF, 4004 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 2A3, Canada

  • *Contact author: aomar@triumf.ca
  • †Contact author: aritz@uvic.ca
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 035004 – Published 4 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/b5wj-jw62

Abstract

We investigate the impact of residual annihilation from sub-GeV mass thermal relic dark matter candidates during big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). Focusing on candidates with p-wave annihilation channels, we show that the hadronic injection of pions and kaons beyond freeze-out, and their subsequent interaction with protons and neutrons prior to the deuterium bottleneck, provides a sensitivity to annihilation that surpasses that of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and indirect detection in the galaxy.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 035004– Published 4 February, 2026
  • Received 22 October 2025
  • Accepted 14 January 2026
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