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Title: Thermal dark matter through the Dirac neutrino portal

Journal Article · · Physical Review. D.

We study a simple model of thermal dark matter annihilating to standard model neutrinos via the neutrino portal. A (pseudo-)Dirac sterile neutrino serves as a mediator between the visible and the dark sectors, while an approximate lepton number symmetry allows for a large neutrino Yukawa coupling and, in turn, efficient dark matter annihilation. The dark sector consists of two particles, a Dirac fermion and complex scalar, charged under a symmetry that ensures the stability of the dark matter. A generic prediction of the model is a sterile neutrino with a large active-sterile mixing angle that decays primarily invisibly. We derive existing constraints and future projections from direct detection experiments, colliders, rare meson and tau decays, electroweak precision tests, and small scale structure observations. Along with these phenomenological tests, we investigate the consequences of perturbativity and scalar mass fine tuning on the model parameter space. A simple, conservative scheme to confront the various tests with the thermal relic target is outlined, and we demonstrate that much of the cosmologically-motivated parameter space is already constrained. We also identify new probes of this scenario such as multibody kaon decays and Drell-Yan production of W bosons at the LHC.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-95ER40896; SC0015634
OSTI ID:
1433034
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1498911
Journal Information:
Physical Review. D., Vol. 97, Issue 7; ISSN 2470-0010
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 58 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Review of Particle Physics text January 2018
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Review of Particle Physics text January 2012
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Complementarity of dark matter detectors in light of the neutrino background text January 2014
Limits on sterile neutrino mixing using atmospheric neutrinos in Super-Kamiokande text January 2014
Neutrinos and Collider Physics text January 2015
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Dark matter annihilation into right-handed neutrinos and the galactic center gamma-ray excess text January 2015
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Searches for invisible decays of the Higgs boson in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7, 8, and 13 TeV text January 2016
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Dark Matter Results From 54-Ton-Day Exposure of PandaX-II Experiment text January 2017
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Cited By (15)

Neutrino decoupling beyond the Standard Model: CMB constraints on the Dark Matter mass with a fast and precise N eff evaluation journal February 2019
Refined bounds on MeV-scale thermal dark sectors from BBN and the CMB journal January 2020
Wobbly Dark Matter Signals at Cherenkov Telescopes from Long-Lived Mediator Decays journal May 2019
Dark matter from freeze-in via the neutrino portal journal July 2019
Neutrino-Dark Matter Connections in Gauge Theories text January 2020
Neutrino-Dark Matter Connections in Gauge Theories text January 2020
Monochromatic dark neutrinos and boosted dark matter in noble liquid direct detection text January 2018
Neutrino decoupling beyond the Standard Model: CMB constraints on the Dark Matter mass with a fast and precise $N_{\rm eff}$ evaluation text January 2018
Refined Bounds on MeV-scale Thermal Dark Sectors from BBN and the CMB text January 2019
Structures of the massive vector boson propagators at finite temperature illuminated by the Goldstone equivalence gauge journal October 2020
Neutrino portals to dark matter journal July 2019
Expression of interest for the CODEX-b detector journal December 2020
A Portalino to the Twin Sector preprint January 2019
Freeze-in Dark Matter from Secret Neutrino Interactions text January 2020
Neutrino-Dark Matter Connections in Gauge Theories text January 2020

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