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Seasons of dark matter freeze-in shaped by the weather of the early Universe

Francesco D’Eramo1,2, Alessandro Lenoci3, and Tommaso Sassi1,2

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 083502 – Published 1 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/v5gn-5n8j

Abstract

Quantifying the imprints of freeze-in dark matter (DM) on cosmological structures requires knowledge of its phase-space distribution. We investigate how variations in the cosmological history before nucleosynthesis, the “weather” of that epoch, give rise to distinct “seasons” in the DM momentum distribution that governs its warmness. Studying decay-driven production across diverse cosmological histories, we map how these conditions shape DM phase-space properties. Our study quantifies how the early Universe composition plays a key role in determining the mass bound on freeze-in DM.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 083502– Published 1 April, 2026
  • Received 5 December 2025
  • Accepted 5 March 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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