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  • Open Access

Finite temperature NLO corrections in relativistic scatterings: Implications for dark matter freeze-in

Sampriti Roy*, Pritam Sen†, and Satyanarayan Mukhopadhyay‡

  • *Contact author: spssr2924@iacs.res.in
  • †Contact author: spsps3333@iacs.res.in
  • ‡Contact author: tpsnm@iacs.res.in
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 076008 – Published 5 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/v8hw-qmcd

Abstract

We study the next-to-leading order (NLO) virtual and thermal corrections to relativistic 2→2 scattering processes involving scalar particles in the early Universe thermal plasma. Taking the example of freeze-in production of scalar dark matter pairs through these scatterings, we evaluate the impact of the NLO corrections to the annihilation rate and the dark matter yield. We find that including only thermal mass corrections to a leading order interaction rate can overestimate the reduction in these rates, and the full NLO corrections can modify the dark matter (DM) abundance predictions by O(30%). It is also observed that while the virtual NLO effects are larger, the finite temperature NLO corrections to the matrix elements in the relativistic regime can modify the DM abundance by O(10%), in comparison to the virtual NLO corrections.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 076008– Published 5 October, 2026
  • Received 8 April 2026
  • Accepted 11 September 2026
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