- Open Access
- Access by Xinjiang University
Effects of non-Bunch-Davies initial conditions on gravitationally produced relics
Phys. Rev. D 114, 023044 – Published 23 July, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ctxp-tlpb
Abstract
Typical gravitational production of relics from amplification of inflationary perturbations assumes Bunch-Davies initial conditions, i.e., a vacuum with initially no particles. In this paper we investigate the impact of non Bunch-Davies initial conditions to the final abundance of relics, with particular attention to the parameter space where the total dark matter abundance is reproduced. We present a general framework for any initial condition, through which we show their nontrivial effect on both spectrum and late-time abundance. We argue that for particles whose source of conformal symmetry breaking comes only from a mass term (spin- fermions and conformally coupled scalars), the choice of initial conditions has little impact on the mass range relevant to dark matter. For other particles, e.g., the longitudinal mode of spin-1, we see a deviation from the standard computation. We exemplify and quantify our results with an initial thermal state and a two-stage inflation scenario, highlighting that the total dark matter can be obtained for a wide range of masses.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Article Text
References (79)
- L. Parker, Phys. Rev. Lett. 21, 562 (1968).
- L. Parker, Phys. Rev. 183, 1057 (1969).
- L. Parker, Phys. Rev. D 3, 346 (1971); 3, 2546(E) (1971).
- L. E. Parker, Other thesis, Harvard University, 2025, arXiv:2507.05372.
- D. H. Lyth and D. Roberts, Phys. Rev. D 57, 7120 (1998).
- D. J. H. Chung, E. W. Kolb, and A. Riotto, Phys. Rev. D 59, 023501 (1998).
- E. W. Kolb, D. J. H. Chung, and A. Riotto, AIP Conf. Proc. 484, 91 (1999).
- D. J. H. Chung, P. Crotty, E. W. Kolb, and A. Riotto, Phys. Rev. D 64, 043503 (2001).
- D. J. H. Chung, E. W. Kolb, A. Riotto, and L. Senatore, Phys. Rev. D 72, 023511 (2005).
- D. J. H. Chung, E. W. Kolb, and A. J. Long, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2019) 189.
- Y. Ema, K. Nakayama, and Y. Tang, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2018) 135.
- E. E. Basso and D. J. H. Chung, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2021) 146.
- E. W. Kolb, A. J. Long, E. McDonough, and G. Payeur, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2023) 181.
- M. Redi and A. Tesi, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2023) 085.
- L. Jenks, E. W. Kolb, and K. Thyme, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2025) 077.
- D. Racco, S. Verner, and W. Xue, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2024) 129.
- A. Belfiglio and O. Luongo, Phys. Rev. D 110, 023541 (2024).
- S. Verner, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2025) 060.
- M. A. G. Garcia, W. Ke, Y. Mambrini, K. A. Olive, and S. Verner, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 08 (2025) 039.
- D. J. H. Chung, L. L. Everett, H. Yoo, and P. Zhou, Phys. Lett. B 712, 147 (2012).
- P. Adshead and E. I. Sfakianakis, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 11 (2015) 021.
- Y. Ema, K. Nakayama, and Y. Tang, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2019) 060.
- F. Koutroulis, O. Lebedev, and S. Pokorski, J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2024) 027.
- P. W. Graham, J. Mardon, and S. Rajendran, Phys. Rev. D 93, 103520 (2016).
- E. W. Kolb and A. J. Long, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2021) 283.
- A. Ahmed, B. Grzadkowski, and A. Socha, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2020) 059.
- A. Arvanitaki, S. Dimopoulos, M. Galanis, D. Racco, O. Simon, and J. O. Thompson, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2021) 106.
- M. Redi and A. Tesi, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2022) 167.
- C. Capanelli, L. Jenks, E. W. Kolb, and E. McDonough, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 061602 (2024).
- C. Capanelli, L. Jenks, E. W. Kolb, and E. McDonough, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2024) 071.
- R. Kallosh, L. Kofman, A. D. Linde, and A. Van Proeyen, Phys. Rev. D 61, 103503 (2000).
- G. F. Giudice, I. Tkachev, and A. Riotto, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (1999) 009.
- E. W. Kolb, A. J. Long, and E. McDonough, Phys. Rev. D 104, 075015 (2021).
- K. Kaneta, W. Ke, Y. Mambrini, K. A. Olive, and S. Verner, Phys. Rev. D 108, 115027 (2023).
- E. W. Kolb, S. Ling, A. J. Long, and R. A. Rosen, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2023) 181.
- S. Alexander, L. Jenks, and E. McDonough, Phys. Lett. B 819, 136436 (2021).
- L. H. Ford, Rep. Prog. Phys. 84, 116901 (2021).
- E. W. Kolb and A. J. Long, Rev. Mod. Phys. 96, 045005 (2024).
- M. A. G. Garcia, M. Pierre, and S. Verner, Phys. Rev. D 108, 115024 (2023).
- R. Ebadi, S. Kumar, A. McCune, H. Tai, and L.-T. Wang, Phys. Rev. D 109, 083519 (2024).
- M. A. G. Garcia and S. Verner, arXiv:2506.12126.
- E. Bertuzzo, Y. F. Perez-Gonzalez, G. M. Salla, and R. Z. Funchal, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 09 (2024) 059.
- K. Kaneta, S. M. Lee, and K.-y. Oda, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 09 (2022) 018.
- A. Chakraborty, S. Clery, M. R. Haque, D. Maity, and Y. Mambrini, Phys. Rev. D 112, 043511 (2025).
- D. Feiteira and O. Lebedev, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 07 (2025) 003.
- T. Markkanen, A. Rajantie, and T. Tenkanen, Phys. Rev. D 98, 123532 (2018).
- L. E. Padilla, J. A. Vázquez, T. Matos, and G. Germán, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2019) 056.
- C. Cosme and T. Tenkanen, Phys. Rev. D 102, 123534 (2020).
- R. Garani, M. Redi, and A. Tesi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 101005 (2025).
- R. Garani, M. Redi, and A. Tesi, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2025) 037.
- E. Alexeev and R. Flauger, arXiv:2502.16745.
- M. Gasperini, M. Giovannini, and G. Veneziano, Phys. Rev. D 48, R439 (1993).
- N. Kaloper, M. Kleban, A. Lawrence, S. Shenker, and L. Susskind, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2002) 037.
- U. H. Danielsson, Phys. Rev. D 66, 023511 (2002).
- C. P. Burgess, J. M. Cline, F. Lemieux, and R. Holman, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2003) 048.
- R. Holman and A. J. Tolley, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2008) 001.
- I.-C. Wang and K.-W. Ng, Phys. Rev. D 77, 083501 (2008).
- N. Agarwal, R. Holman, A. J. Tolley, and J. Lin, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2013) 085.
- A. Aravind, D. Lorshbough, and S. Paban, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2013) 076.
- R. Flauger, D. Green, and R. A. Porto, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 08 (2013) 032.
- U. Danielsson, J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2019) 095.
- K. Bhattacharya, S. Mohanty, and R. Rangarajan, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 121302 (2006).
- I. Agullo and L. Parker, Gen. Relativ. Gravit. 43, 2541 (2011).
- I. Agullo and L. Parker, Phys. Rev. D 83, 063526 (2011).
- D. J. H. Chung and H. Yoo, Phys. Rev. D 87, 023516 (2013).
- Y. Akrami et al. (Planck Collaboration), Astron. Astrophys. 641, A10 (2020).
- V. Cardoso, Ó. J. C. Dias, G. S. Hartnett, M. Middleton, P. Pani, and J. E. Santos, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 03 (2018) 043.
- C. Ünal, F. Pacucci, and A. Loeb, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2021) 007.
- Y. Chen, R. Roy, S. Vagnozzi, and L. Visinelli, Phys. Rev. D 106, 043021 (2022).
- A. K. Saha, P. Parashari, T. N. Maity, A. Dubey, S. Bouri, and R. Laha, Eur. Phys. J. C 84, 901 (2024).
- A. Arvanitaki and S. Dubovsky, Phys. Rev. D 83, 044026 (2011).
- R. Brito, V. Cardoso, and P. Pani, Lect. Notes Phys. 906, 1 (2015).
- G. D’Amico and N. Kaloper, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 08 (2021) 058.
- N. D. Birrell and P. C. W. Davies, Quantum Fields in Curved Space, Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1982), ISBN [Amazon][WorldCat], [Amazon][WorldCat].
- O. Lebedev and J.-H. Yoon, Phys. Lett. B 873, 140222 (2026).
- D. J. H. Chung, H. Yoo, and P. Zhou, Phys. Rev. D 87, 123502 (2013).
- A. Boyarsky, J. Lesgourgues, O. Ruchayskiy, and M. Viel, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2009) 012.
- M. Viel, G. D. Becker, J. S. Bolton, and M. G. Haehnelt, Phys. Rev. D 88, 043502 (2013).
- M. A. Amin and M. Mirbabayi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 221004 (2024).