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Title: Looking for the WIMP next door

Abstract

We comprehensively study experimental constraints and prospects for a class of minimal hidden sector dark matter (DM) models, highlighting how the cosmological history of these models informs the experimental signals. We study simple ‘secluded’ models, where the DM freezes out into unstable dark mediator states, and consider the minimal cosmic history of this dark sector, where coupling of the dark mediator to the SM was sufficient to keep the two sectors in thermal equilibrium at early times. In the well-motivated case where the dark mediators couple to the Standard Model (SM) via renormalizable interactions, the requirement of thermal equilibrium provides a minimal, UV-insensitive, and predictive cosmology for hidden sector dark matter. We call DM that freezes out of a dark radiation bath in thermal equilibrium with the SM a WIMP next door, and demonstrate that the parameter space for such WIMPs next door is sharply defined, bounded, and in large part potentially accessible. This parameter space, and the corresponding signals, depend on the leading interaction between the SM and the dark mediator; we establish it for both Higgs and vector portal interactions. Specifically, there is a cosmological lower bound on the portal coupling strength necessary to thermalize the two sectorsmore » in the early universe. We determine this thermalization floor as a function of equilibration temperature for the first time. We demonstrate that direct detection experiments are currently probing this cosmological lower bound in some regions of parameter space, while indirect detection signals and terrestrial searches for the mediator cut further into the viable parameter space. We introduce regions of interest for both direct detection and dark mediator searches, including motivated parameter space for the direct detection of sub-GeV DM.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3]
  1. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); Univ. of Cincinnati, OH (United States)
  2. Univ. of Cincinnati, OH (United States)
  3. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
OSTI Identifier:
1512429
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0015655; SC0017840
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Journal of High Energy Physics (Online); Journal Volume: 2018; Journal Issue: 2; Journal ID: ISSN 1029-8479
Publisher:
Springer Berlin
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS; 79 ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; Beyond Standard Model; Cosmology of Theories beyond the SM; Thermal Field Theory

Citation Formats

Evans, Jared A., Gori, Stefania, and Shelton, Jessie. Looking for the WIMP next door. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1007/jhep02(2018)100.
Evans, Jared A., Gori, Stefania, & Shelton, Jessie. Looking for the WIMP next door. United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep02(2018)100
Evans, Jared A., Gori, Stefania, and Shelton, Jessie. Fri . "Looking for the WIMP next door". United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep02(2018)100. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1512429.
@article{osti_1512429,
title = {Looking for the WIMP next door},
author = {Evans, Jared A. and Gori, Stefania and Shelton, Jessie},
abstractNote = {We comprehensively study experimental constraints and prospects for a class of minimal hidden sector dark matter (DM) models, highlighting how the cosmological history of these models informs the experimental signals. We study simple ‘secluded’ models, where the DM freezes out into unstable dark mediator states, and consider the minimal cosmic history of this dark sector, where coupling of the dark mediator to the SM was sufficient to keep the two sectors in thermal equilibrium at early times. In the well-motivated case where the dark mediators couple to the Standard Model (SM) via renormalizable interactions, the requirement of thermal equilibrium provides a minimal, UV-insensitive, and predictive cosmology for hidden sector dark matter. We call DM that freezes out of a dark radiation bath in thermal equilibrium with the SM a WIMP next door, and demonstrate that the parameter space for such WIMPs next door is sharply defined, bounded, and in large part potentially accessible. This parameter space, and the corresponding signals, depend on the leading interaction between the SM and the dark mediator; we establish it for both Higgs and vector portal interactions. Specifically, there is a cosmological lower bound on the portal coupling strength necessary to thermalize the two sectors in the early universe. We determine this thermalization floor as a function of equilibration temperature for the first time. We demonstrate that direct detection experiments are currently probing this cosmological lower bound in some regions of parameter space, while indirect detection signals and terrestrial searches for the mediator cut further into the viable parameter space. We introduce regions of interest for both direct detection and dark mediator searches, including motivated parameter space for the direct detection of sub-GeV DM.},
doi = {10.1007/jhep02(2018)100},
journal = {Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)},
number = 2,
volume = 2018,
place = {United States},
year = {2018},
month = {2}
}

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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: Rates for 2 ↔ 2 (in black) vs. 2 ↔ 1 transitions (in different shades of red depending on the mediator mass) as a function of the temperature. Dotted lines correspond to the 2 ↔ 1 rates after the mediator becomes non-relativistic, $T$ < $m$/2.46, with $m$ themore » mediator mass. The gray region at low temperatures corresponds to the uncertain regions near $Λ_{QCD}$ ≡ 300MeV, above which $α_s$ becomes large, and the leading order calculation is unreliable, and below which 3 ↔ 2 pion processes (included in the 2 ↔ 2 rate, shown in light blue) dominate the equilibration. The gray region at high temperature is near the electroweak phase transition $T_c$ = 160 GeV; see appendix A for more details. Left: HSFO-VP. In this model the 2 ↔ 2 scattering rate is nearly linear with temperature above the chiral phase transition. After pion processes become ineffective and QED processes dominate, the scaling is nearly linear again. Right: HSFO-SP. In this model the 2 ↔ 2 rate is more sensitive to mass thresholds. It drops sharply after the chiral phase transition (kaon processes have been neglected).« less

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