Dark matter (DM) may have its origin in a pre-big-bang epoch, the cosmic inflation. Here, we consider for the first time a broad class of scenarios where a massive free scalar field unavoidably reaches an equilibrium between its classical and quantum dynamics in a characteristic timescale during inflation and sources the DM density. The study gives the abundance and perturbation spectrum of any DM component sourced by the scalar field. We show that this class of scenarios generically predicts enhanced structure formation, allowing one to test models where DM interacts with matter only gravitationally.

• Received 9 May 2019
• Revised 27 June 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.061302