Exploring Inflation Options for Warm Dark Matter Coupled to the Higgs Boson

Abstract

We extend the Standard Model with a scalar warm dark matter field S with an interaction with the Higgs boson ∅. This warm dark matter scenario is in agreement with cosmological observations if S and ∅ come into thermal and diffusive equilibrium before the temperature drops below the Higgs boson mass mH. We study inflation driven by the fields ∅ or S, and also study preheating and reheating, in order to constrain the parameters of this extension of the Standard Model. It is remarkable that, with the current data, these models pass a closure test with no free parameters.