scholarly journals Lightening gravity-mediated dark matter

Author(s):  
Yoo-Jin Kang ◽  
Hyun Min Lee

Abstract We revisit the scenario of a massive spin-2 particle as the mediator for communicating between dark matter of arbitrary spin and the Standard Model. Taking the general couplings of the spin-2 particle in the effective theory, we discuss the thermal production mechanisms for dark matter with various channels and the dark matter self-scattering. For WIMP and light dark matter cases, we impose the relic density condition and various experimental constraints from direct and indirect detections, precision measurements as well as collider experiments. We show that it is important to include the annihilation of dark matter into a pair of spin-2 particles in both allowed and forbidden regimes, thus opening up the consistent parameter space for dark matter. The benchmark models of the spin-2 mediator are presented in the context of the warped extra dimension and compared to the simplified models.

Universe ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 264
Author(s):  
Daniel Boyanovsky

We study various production mechanisms of sterile neutrinos in the early universe beyond and within the standard model. We obtain the quantum kinetic equations for production and the distribution function of sterile-like neutrinos at freeze-out, from which we obtain free streaming lengths, equations of state and coarse grained phase space densities. In a simple extension beyond the standard model, in which neutrinos are Yukawa coupled to a Higgs-like scalar, we derive and solve the quantum kinetic equation for sterile production and analyze the freeze-out conditions and clustering properties of this dark matter constituent. We argue that in the mass basis, standard model processes that produce active neutrinos also yield sterile-like neutrinos, leading to various possible production channels. Hence, the final distribution function of sterile-like neutrinos is a result of the various kinematically allowed production processes in the early universe. As an explicit example, we consider production of light sterile neutrinos from pion decay after the QCD phase transition, obtaining the quantum kinetic equation and the distribution function at freeze-out. A sterile-like neutrino with a mass in the keV range produced by this process is a suitable warm dark matter candidate with a free-streaming length of the order of few kpc consistent with cores in dwarf galaxies.


Author(s):  
Junji Hisano

It is now certain that dark matter exists in the Universe. However, we do not know its nature, nor are there dark matter candidates in the standard model of particle physics or astronomy However, weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in models beyond the standard model are one of the leading candidates available to provide explanation. The dark matter direct detection experiments, in which the nuclei recoiled by WIMPs are sought, are one of the methods to elucidate the nature of dark matter. This chapter introduces an effective field theory (EFT) approach in order to evaluate the nucleon–WIMP elastic scattering cross section.


2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (5 Sept-Oct) ◽  
pp. 419 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Díaz Cruz

We present a review of Higgs physics in the SM and beyond, including the tests of the Higgs boson properties that have been performed at LHC and have permitted to delineate its profile. After presenting the essential features of the BEH mechanism, and its implementation in the SM, we discuss how the Higgs mass limits developed over the years. These constraints in turn helped to classify the Higgs phenomenology (decays and production mechanisms), which provided the right direction to search for the Higgs particle, an enterprise that culminated with its discovery at LHC. So far, the constraints on the couplings of the Higgs particle, point towards a SM interpretation. However, the SM has open ends that suggest the need to look for extensions of the model. We discuss in general the connection of the Higgs sector with some new physics (e.g. supersymmetry, flavor and Dark matter), with special focus on a more flavored Higgs sector. Thus is realized in the most general 2HDM, and its textured version, which we study in general, and for its various limits, which contain distinctive flavor-violating signals that could be searched at current and future colliders.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Basabendu Barman ◽  
Subhaditya Bhattacharya ◽  
Bohdan Grzadkowski

Abstract A model of dark matter (DM) that communicates with the Standard Model (SM) exclusively through suppressed dimension five operator is discussed. The SM is augmented with a symmetry U(1)X ⊗ Z2, where U(1)X is gauged and broken spontaneously by a very heavy decoupled scalar. The massive U(1)X vector boson (Xμ) is stabilized being odd under unbroken Z2 and therefore may contribute as the DM component of the universe. Dark sector field strength tensor Xμν couples to the SM hypercharge tensor Bμν via the presence of a heavier Z2 odd real scalar Φ, i.e. 1/Λ XμνBμνΦ, with Λ being a scale of new physics. The freeze-in production of the vector boson dark matter feebly coupled to the SM is advocated in this analysis. Limitations of the so-called UV freeze-in mechanism that emerge when the maximum reheat temperature TRH drops down close to the scale of DM mass are discussed. The parameter space of the model consistent with the observed DM abundance is determined. The model easily and naturally avoids both direct and indirect DM searches. Possibility for detection at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is also considered. A Stueckelberg formulation of the model is derived.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. de Giorgi ◽  
S. Vogl

Abstract We study dark matter interacting via a massive spin-2 mediator. To have a consistent effective theory for the spin-2 particle, we work in a warped extra-dimensional model such that the mediator(s) are the Kaluza-Klein (KK) modes of the 5D graviton. We pay close attention to dark matter annihilations into KK-gravitons. Due to the high energy behavior of longitudinal modes of spin-2 fields, these channels exhibit a tremendous growth at large center of mass energies $$ \sqrt{s} $$ s if only one spin-2 mediator is considered. For the first time, we include the full KK-tower in this dark matter production process and find that this growth is unphysical and cancels once the full field content of the extra-dimensional theory is taken into account. Interestingly, this implies that it is not possible to approximate the results obtained in the full theory with a reduced set of effective interactions once $$ \sqrt{s} $$ s is greater than the first graviton mass. This casts some doubt on the universal applicability of previous studies with spin-2 mediators within an EFT framework and prompts us to revisit the phenomenological allowed parameter space of gravitationally interacting scalar dark matter in warped extra-dimensions.


Universe ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 354
Author(s):  
Alberto Salvio ◽  
Simone Scollo

Extending the standard model with three right-handed neutrinos and a simple QCD axion sector can account for neutrino oscillations, dark matter and baryon asymmetry; at the same time, it solves the strong CP problem, stabilizes the electroweak vacuum and can implement critical Higgs inflation (satisfying all current observational bounds). We perform here a general analysis of dark matter (DM) in such a model, which we call the aνMSM. Although critical Higgs inflation features a (quasi) inflection point of the inflaton potential, we show that DM cannot receive a contribution from primordial black holes in the aνMSM. This leads to a multicomponent axion–sterile neutrino DM and allows us to relate the axion parameters, such as the axion decay constant, to the neutrino parameters. We include several DM production mechanisms: the axion production via misalignment and decay of topological defects as well as the sterile neutrino production through the resonant and non-resonant mechanisms and in the recently proposed CPT-symmetric universe.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. de Giorgi ◽  
S. Vogl

Abstract The Kaluza-Klein (KK) decomposition of higher-dimensional gravity gives rise to a tower of KK-gravitons in the effective four-dimensional (4D) theory. Such massive spin-2 fields are known to be connected with unitarity issues and easily lead to a breakdown of the effective theory well below the naive scale of the interaction. However, the breakdown of the effective 4D theory is expected to be controlled by the parameters of the 5D theory. Working in a simplified Randall-Sundrum model we study the matrix elements for matter annihilations into massive gravitons. We find that truncating the KK-tower leads to an early breakdown of perturbative unitarity. However, by considering the full tower we obtain a set of sum rules for the couplings between the different KK-fields that restore unitarity up to the scale of the 5D theory. We prove analytically that these are fulfilled in the model under consideration and present numerical tests of their convergence. This work complements earlier studies that focused on graviton self-interactions and yields additional sum rules that are required if matter fields are incorporated into warped extra-dimensions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Aad ◽  
◽  
B. Abbott ◽  
D. C. Abbott ◽  
A. Abed Abud ◽  
...  

Abstract A search for dark matter is conducted in final states containing a photon and missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ s = 13 TeV. The data, collected during 2015–2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN LHC, correspond to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1. No deviations from the predictions of the Standard Model are observed and 95% confidence-level upper limits between 2.45 fb and 0.5 fb are set on the visible cross section for contributions from physics beyond the Standard Model, in different ranges of the missing transverse momentum. The results are interpreted as 95% confidence-level limits in models where weakly interacting dark-matter candidates are pair-produced via an s-channel axial-vector or vector mediator. Dark-matter candidates with masses up to 415 (580) GeV are excluded for axial-vector (vector) mediators, while the maximum excluded mass of the mediator is 1460 (1470) GeV. In addition, the results are expressed in terms of 95% confidence-level limits on the parameters of a model with an axion-like particle produced in association with a photon, and are used to constrain the coupling gaZγ of an axion-like particle to the electroweak gauge bosons.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Soo-Min Choi ◽  
Hyun Min Lee ◽  
Bin Zhu

Abstract We consider a novel mechanism to realize exothermic dark matter with dark mesons in the limit of approximate flavor symmetry in a dark QCD. We introduce a local dark U(1)′ symmetry to communicate between dark mesons and the Standard Model via Z′ portal by partially gauging the dark flavor symmetry with flavor-dependent charges for cancelling chiral anomalies in the dark sector. After the dark local U(1)′ is broken spontaneously by the VEV of a dark Higgs, there appear small mass splittings between dark quarks, consequently, leading to small split masses for dark mesons, required to explain the electron recoil excess in XENON1T by the inelastic scattering between dark mesons and electron. We propose a concrete benchmark model for split dark mesons based on SU(3)L× SU(3)R/SU(3)V flavor symmetry and SU(Nc) color group and show that there exists a parameter space making a better fit to the XENON1T data with two correlated peaks from exothermic processes and satisfying the correct relic density, current experimental and theoretical constraints.


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