Weak-scale hidden sector and energy transport in fireball models of gamma-ray bursts - art. no. 043003

The annihilation of pairs of very weakly interacting particles in the neigh borhood of gamma-ray sources is introduced here as a plausible mechanism to overcome the baryon load problem. Our approach uses the weak-scale hidden sector models in which the Higgs sector of the standard model is extended t o include a gauge singlet that only interacts with the Higgs particle. The singlet of the model is shown to be capable of explaining how these very hi gh energy gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) can be powered at the onset of very energ etic events such as supernovae (collapsars) explosions, or coalescences of binary neutron stars. Part of the singlets are converted to photons to repr oduce the observed electromagnetic spectrum, and the remaining amount contr ibutes to the dark matter distribution in the interstellar medium. The mass of the singlet needed to reproduce the GRBs coincides with the one needed for the self-interacting dark matter.