Dark matter kinetic decoupling with a light particle

Abstract

We argue that the acoustic damping of the matter power spectrum is not a generic feature of the kinetic decoupling of dark matter, but even the enhancement (overshooting) can be realized depending on the nature of the kinetic decoupling when compared to that in the standard cold dark matter model. We consider a model that exhibits a sudden kinetic decoupling and investigate cosmological perturbations in the standard cosmological background numerically in the model. We also give an analytic discussion in a simplified setup. Our results indicate that the nature of the kinetic decoupling could have a great impact on small scale density perturbations. (c) 2018 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab