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I was just wandering if a gravitino could be in the WIMP class, because they are both massive (admittedly WIMP's more so) and are both weakly interacting and predicted by R-parity. i.e Gravitinos are a sub class of WIMPs.

Qmechanic
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  • According to Wikipedia the answer is yes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitino – John Rennie Mar 12 '13 at 07:03
  • "admittedly WIMP's more so" In some models. They are as yet unobserved, and the masses are only known in a very general sense of "Well, if we makes this small set of very reasonable assumptions we can estimate the mass range to expect." – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Mar 23 '13 at 14:47

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The gravitino is massive and does couple to the neutral weak sector, so in that sense it is a weakly interacting massive particle. (Note that the 'W' in WIMP refers to the electrically neutral weak sector, and not as a general adjective.) The further implied question I'm sure you're wondering about is whether it's a candidate for CDM. This is the case, depending on the model. If R-parity is conserved and the gravitino is the LSP then it is a CDM candidate.

sujeet
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    Section 3.1 of http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0404175 provides lots of relatively recent references about possible issues with gravitinos as a DM candidate, as well as scenarios where they are viable candidates. – FullerFulton Mar 28 '14 at 10:53