Portal Dark Matter Research Articles

CLFV leptophilic Z′\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$Z^\\prime $$\\end{document} as a dark matter portal: prospects for colliders

Extensions of the Standard Model featuring light vector bosons have been explored with the goal of resolving certain tensions between theory and experiment, among them the discrepancy in the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, Δaμ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\Delta a_{\\mu }$$\\end{document}. In particular, this is the case of a minimal construction including a leptophilic, strictly flavour violating, vector boson Z′\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$Z^\\prime $$\\end{document}. These new vector bosons are also well-motivated dark matter portals, with non-trivial couplings to stable, weakly interacting states which can account for the correct dark matter density. Here we study the prospects of a Standard Model extension (via a vector boson and a fermionic dark matter candidate) concerning signatures at the LHC, and at future lepton and hadron colliders. We discuss the cross-sections of several processes leading to same- and opposite-sign muon-tau lepton pairs in the final state, as well as final states with missing energy (in the form of neutrinos and/or dark matter). Our findings suggest that a future muon collider offers the best prospects to probe this model (together with searches for dilepton pairs and missing energy signatures at the FCC-ee running at the Z-pole); moreover, the complementarity of the different future high-energy colliders is also paramount to probing distinct Z′\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$Z^\\prime $$\\end{document} mass regimes.

Effects of gravitational particle production on Higgs portal dark matter

The gravitational interaction is ubiquitous and the effect of gravitational particle production necessarily contributes to the dark matter abundance. A simple candidate of dark matter is a scalar particle, whose only renormalizable interaction is the Higgs portal coupling. We show that the abundance of Higgs portal dark matter is significantly affected by the gravitational production effect. In particular, the gravitational production from the coherently oscillating inflaton field during the reheating often gives dominant contribution.

Higgs portal dark matter freeze-in at stronger coupling: observational benchmarks

We study freeze-in production of Higgs portal dark matter (DM) at temperatures far below the dark matter mass. The temperature of the Standard Model (SM) thermal bath may have never been high such that dark matter production via thermal emission has been Boltzmann-suppressed. This allows for a significant coupling between the Higgs field and DM, which is being probed by the direct DM detection experiments and invisible Higgs decay searches at the LHC. We delineate the corresponding parameter space in the Higgs portal framework with dark matter of spin 0, 1/2 and 1.

Electroweak corrections to Higgs boson production via Z Z fusion at the future LHeC

An important mechanism for production of the Higgs boson at the prospective Large Hadron-electron Collider (LHeC) is via neutral current (NC) weak boson fusion (WBF) processes. Aside from its role in measurements of Higgs couplings within the standard model, this production mode is particularly useful in searchings of Higgs decays into invisible particles in various models for the Higg portal dark matter. In this work we compute the electroweak corrections for the NC WBF at the LHeC up to the one-loop level. For a center-of-mass energy of 1.98 TeV, the magnitudes of the relative corrections for the total cross section at next-to-leading (NLO) order are respectively 8% and 17%, in the two renormalization schemes we use. The NLO terms also distort various distributions (notably, those for Higgs and electron observables) computed at the leading order. Along with our previous treatment of the charge current processes, this paper completes the calculation of the NLO electroweak effects for the dominant Higgs production modes at the LHeC. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Light Dirac neutrino portal dark matter with gauged U(1)B−L symmetry

We propose a gauged U(1)B−L version of the light Dirac neutrino portal dark matter. The U(1)B−L symmetry provides a UV completion by naturally accommodating three right-handed neutrinos from anomaly cancellation requirements which, in combination with the left-handed neutrinos, form the sub-eV Dirac neutrinos after electroweak symmetry breaking. The particle content and the gauge charges are chosen in such a way that light neutrinos remain purely Dirac and dark matter, a gauge singlet Dirac fermion, remain stable. We consider both thermal and nonthermal production possibilities of dark matter and correlate the corresponding parameter space with the one within reach of future cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments sensitive to enhanced relativistic degrees of freedom ΔNeff. The interplay of dark matter, CMB, structure formation and other terrestrial constraints keep the scenario very predictive leading the U(1)B−L parameter space into tight corners. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Constraints on sterile neutrino portal dark matter from cosmology and collider

Constraints on sterile neutrino portal dark matter from cosmology and collider

Boosting dark matter searches at muon colliders with machine learning: The mono-Higgs channel as a case study

Abstract The search for dark matter (DM) candidates at high-energy colliders is one of the most promising avenues to understand the nature of this elusive component of the universe. Several searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have strongly constrained a wide range of simplified models. The combination of the bounds from the LHC with direct-detection experiments exclude the most minimal scalar-singlet DM model. To address this, lepton portal DM models are suitable candidates where DM is predominantly produced at lepton colliders since the DM candidate only interacts with the lepton sector through a mediator that carries a lepton number. In this work, we analyze the production of DM pairs in association with a Higgs boson decaying into two bottom quarks at future muon colliders in the framework of the minimal lepton portal DM model. It is found that the usual cut-based analysis methods fail to probe heavy DM masses for both the resolved (where the decay products of the Higgs boson can be resolved as two well-separated small-R jets) and the merged (where the Higgs boson is clustered as one large-R jet) regimes. We have then built a search strategy based on boosted-decision trees (BDTs). We have optimized the hyperparameters of the BDT model to both have a high signal-to-background ratio and to avoid overtraining effects. We have found very important enhancements of the signal significance with respect to the cut-based analysis by factors of 8–50 depending on the regime (resolved or merged) and the benchmark points. Using this BDT model on a 1D parameter space scan, we found that future muon colliders with $\sqrt{s}=3$ TeV and ${\cal L} = 1~{\rm ab}^{-1}$ can exclude DM masses up to 1 TeV at the 95% confidence level.

Sterile neutrinos from dark matter: a ν nightmare?

We provide a comprehensive study of observable spectra from dark matter pair-annihilation or decay into sterile (right-handed) neutrinos. This occurs, for instance, in neutrino portal dark matter models, where a sterile neutrino acts as the portal between dark matter and the Standard Model sector. The subsequent decays of right-handed neutrinos produce detectable Standard Model particles, notably photons, positrons, and neutrinos. We study the phenomenology of models where the right-handed neutrino masses are below the GeV scale, as well as models where they are at, or significantly heavier than, the TeV scale. In both instances, and for different reasons, the standard tools, including Monte Carlo simulations, are both inadequate and inaccurate. We present the complete framework to compute the relevant branching ratios for right-handed neutrino decays and the spectra of secondary photons, positrons, and neutrinos for a broad range of dark matter and right-handed neutrino masses. We discuss the general features of such signals, and compare the spectra to standard signals from dark matter annihilation/decay into bottom quarks. Additionally, we provide open source code (The code is available at https://github.com/LoganAMorrison/blackthorn) that can be used to compute such spectra.

Lepton portal dark matter at muon colliders: Total rates and generic features for phenomenologically viable scenarios

Lepton portal dark matter at muon colliders: Total rates and generic features for phenomenologically viable scenarios

Search for dark matter lines at the Galactic Center with 14 years of Fermi data

Dark matter (DM) in the Milky Way halo may annihilate or decay to photons, producing monochromatic gamma rays. We search for DM-induced spectral lines using 14 years of data from the Large Area Telescope onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope ($\textit{Fermi}$-LAT) between $10\,\mathrm{GeV}$ and $2\,\mathrm{TeV}$ in the inner Milky Way leveraging both the spatial and spectral morphology of an expected signal. We present new constraints as strong as $\langle \sigma v \rangle \lesssim 6\times 10^{-30}\, \mathrm{cm}^3/\mathrm{s}$ for the two-to-two annihilations and $\tau \gtrsim 10^{30}\,\mathrm{s}$ for one-to-two decays, representing leading sensitivity between $10\,\mathrm{GeV}$ and $\sim$$500\,\mathrm{GeV}$. We consider the implications of our line-constraints on the Galactic Center Excess (GCE), which is a previously-observed excess of continuum $\sim$GeV gamma-rays that may be explained by DM annihilation. The Higgs portal and neutralino-like DM scenarios, which have been extensively discussed as possible origins of the GCE, are constrained by our work because of the lack of observed one-loop decays to two photons. More generally, we interpret our null results in a variety of annihilating and decaying DM models, such as neutralinos, gravitinos, and glueballs, showing that in many cases the line search is more powerful than the continuum, despite the continuum annihilation being at tree level.

Electroweak phase transition and gravitational wave: Higgs potential from 10−11 s of early universe to 2022

After the discovery of the Higgs boson, the 125 GeV scalar boson becomes a realistic portal to study the fundamental physics and its deep connections to cosmology. The true shape of the Higgs potential becomes essential to the dynamics of the electroweak spontaneous symmetry breaking, the electroweak baryogenesis, Higgs portal dark matter, and the phase transition gravitational wave (GW). Especially, the GW from first-order electroweak phase transition provides new and realistic approaches to explore the Higgs potential and its abundant cosmological effects. Meanwhile, Precise calculations of the phase transition dynamics and the GW spectra are crucial to experimental signals.

Sterile neutrino portal dark matter in nu THDM

In this paper, we propose the sterile neutrino portal dark matter in nu THDM. This model can naturally generate tiny neutrino mass with the neutrinophilic scalar doublet Phi _{nu } and sterile neutrinos N around TeV scale. Charged under a Z_2 symmetry, one Dirac fermion singlet chi and one scalar singlet phi are further introduced in the dark sector. The sterile neutrinos N are the mediators between the DM and SM. Depending on the coupling strength, the DM can be either WIMP or FIMP. For the WIMP scenario, pair annihilation of DM into NN is the key channel to satisfy various bounds, which could be tested at indirect detection experiments. For the FIMP scenario, besides the direct production of DM from freeze-in mechanism, contributions from late decay of NLOP is also important. When sterile neutrinos are heavier than the dark sector, NLOP is long-lived due to tiny mixing angle between sterile and light neutrinos. Constrains from free-streaming length, CMB, BBN and neutrino experiments are considered.

Portal matter, kinetic mixing, and muon g − 2

We present a minimal construction using leptonic portal matter that addresses the muon g−2 anomaly. While the chiral enhancement mechanism is reminiscent of that of fermiophobic Z′ gauge models, the parameter space motivated by the kinetic mixing/vector portal dark matter model paradigm is vastly different and can be readily explored in current and forthcoming experiments.

Light lepton portal dark matter meets the LHC

We examine the sensitivity of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to light lepton portal dark matter with its mass below 10 GeV. The model features an extra doublet scalar field and singlet Dirac dark matter, which have Yukawa interactions with left-handed leptons. To correctly produce the dark matter abundance via the thermal freeze-out, a large mass splitting among the extra scalars is required, thus providing a light neutral scalar below mathcal{O}(10)textrm{GeV} and heavy neutral and charged scalars at the electroweak scale. In this paper, we focus on the electroweak pair-production of the extra scalars with subsequent model-specific scalar decays and evaluate the current constraints with the LHC Run 2 data and the discovery potential at the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). It turns out that a large part of the theoretically allowed parameter space can be tested at the HL-LHC by taking into account complementarity between slepton searches and mono-Z plus missing transverse energy search. We also discuss same-sign charged scalar production as a unique prediction of the model, and the implication of the collider searches in the thermal dark matter scenario.

ALP-portal majorana dark matter

Axion like particles (ALPs) and right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) are two well-motivated dark matter (DM) candidates. However, these two particles have a completely different origin. Axion was proposed to solve the strong CP problem, whereas RHNs were introduced to explain light neutrino masses through seesaw mechanisms. We study the case of ALP portal RHN DM (Majorana DM) taking into account existing constraints on ALPs. We consider the leading effective operators mediating interactions between the ALP and Standard Model (SM) particles and three RHNs to generate light neutrino masses through type-I seesaw. Further, ALP-RHN neutrino coupling is introduced to generalize the model which is restricted by the relic density and indirect detection constraint.

W boson mass and muon g−2 in a lepton portal dark matter model

We study a lepton portal dark matter model, motivated by the deviation of the $W$ boson mass reported by the CDF collaboration. We introduce vectorlike leptons and a scalar dark matter (DM) that exclusively couples to the extra leptons and muon. The one-loop corrections induced by the new particles can shift the $W$ boson mass. Besides, the discrepancy in the muon anomalous magnetic moment and the DM density can simultaneously be explained by this setup, if the vectorlike lepton is lighter than 200 GeV and nearly degenerate with the DM particle. We also see that the constraints on such a light extra lepton from the collider experiments can be evaded due to the existence of the DM particle.

CTA sensitivity on TeV scale dark matter models with complementary limits from direct detection

With ever increasing pressure from collider physics and direct detection experiments, particle physics models of TeV scale dark matter are gaining more attention. In this work, we consider two realizations of the class of scalar portal dark matter scenarios — the inverse seesaw model and the inert doublet model. Observations by the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) of very-high-energy γ rays from dark matter annihilation in the context of these models are simulated for the Draco and Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxies, and later analyzed using ctools. We study the potential of CTA for the 5σ detection of a dark matter annihilation signal.In the absence of a signal, we also derive the 2σ upper limits on the annihilation cross-section. We compare our projected CTA sensitivity against the projected sensitivity of the next generation of direct detection experiment, i.e. XENONnT. Although the limits from CTA are significantly improved compared with the previous generations of γ-ray experiments, they are still ∼2 orders of magnitude above the thermal relic cross-section for the considered targets. In the case of the inverse seesaw model, the constraint from the future direct detection experiment XENONnT is much weaker than the CTA sensitivity, whereas for the inert doublet model, XENONnT gives a bound an order of magnitude stronger compared to the CTA limits.

Confronting cosmic ray electron and positron excesses with hybrid triplet Higgs portal dark matter * *Supported in part by the National Science Foundation of China (11775093, 12175082)

We perform a detailed study of scalar dark matter with triplet Higgs extensions of the Standard Model in order to explain the cosmic ray electron and positron excesses reported by AMS-02 and DAMPE. A detailed analysis of the AMS-02 positron excess reveals that for different orderings (normal, inverted, and quasi-degenerate) of neutrino mass, the hybrid triplet Higgs portal framework is more favored with respect to the single triplet Higgs portal for TeV scale dark matter. We also show that the resonant peak and continuous excess in DAMPE cosmic ray data can be well explained with the hybrid triplet Higgs portal dark matter when a dark matter sub-halo nearby is taken into account.

Dark matter transient annihilations in the early Universe

The cosmological evolution can modify the dark matter (DM) properties in the early Universe to be vastly different from the properties today. Therefore, the relation between the relic abundance and the DM constraints today needs to be revisited. We propose novel \textit{transient} annihilations of DM which helps to alleviate the pressure from DM null detection results. As a concrete example, we consider the vector portal DM and focus on the mass evolution of the dark photon. When the Universe cools down, the gauge boson mass can increase monotonically and go across several important thresholds; opening new transient annihilation channels in the early Universe. Those channels are either forbidden or weakened at the late Universe which helps to evade the indirect searches. In particular, the transient resonant channel can survive direct detection (DD) without tuning the DM to be half of the dark photon mass and can be soon tested by future DD or collider experiments. A feature of the scenario is the existence of a light dark scalar.

Addendum to “Invisible Higgs decay width versus dark matter direct detection cross section in Higgs portal dark matter models”

This article is an addendum to Ref.~\cite{Baek:2014jga}. Here, we discuss the invisible Higgs decay width $\Gamma_{h}^{\rm inv}$ in the Higgs portal vector dark matter (VDM) model in the limit $m_V \rightarrow 0^+$. In the effective field theory (EFT) approach where the VDM mass is attributed to the St\"{u}ckelberg mechanism, $( \Gamma_{h}^{\rm inv} )_{\rm EFT}$ is divergent, which is unphysical and puzzling. On the other hand $( \Gamma_{h}^{\rm inv} )_{\rm UV}$ becomes finite in a UV completion, where the VDM mass is generated by the dark Higgs mechanism. Then we can take the limit $m_V \rightarrow 0^+$ by taking either {\it (i)} the dark gauge coupling $g_X \rightarrow 0^+$ with a fixed dark Higgs vacuum expectation value $v_\Phi$, or {\it (ii)} $v_\Phi \to 0^+$ with a fixed $g_X$. Such a difference in the behavior of $\Gamma_{h}^{\rm inv}$ in the massless VDM limit demonstrates another limitation of EFT for the Higgs portal VDM, and the importance of gauge-invariant and renormalizable models for the Higgs portal VDM.