Gravitational Excitons as Dark Matter

Abstract

In earlier work it was pointed out that for warped product spacetimes the conformal (geometrical moduli) excitations of the internal compactified factor spaces should be observable as massive scalar fields in the external spacetime. Here we show that these scalar fields (gravitational excitons) describe weakly interacting particles and can be considered as dark matter component. Masses of the gravexcitons are defined by the form of the effective potential of the theory and the stabilization scales of the internal space. This implies that different stabilization scales result in different types of DM. An essential role is played by the effective potential. On the one hand, its minima fix possible stabilization scales of the internal spaces; on the other hand, they provide possible values for the effective cosmological constant.