Probing the Dark Sector with Dark Matter Bound States

Journal Article · Mon Apr 11 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.151801· OSTI ID:1598357

An, Haipeng ^[1]; Echenard, Bertrand ^[1]; Pospelov, Maxim ^[2]; Zhang, Yue ^[1]

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1. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
2. Univ. of Victoria, BC (Canada); Perimeter Inst. for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, ON (Canada)

A model of the dark sector where $O\left(\text{few}\mathrm{GeV}\right)$ mass dark matter particles $\chi$ couple to a lighter dark force mediator $V$, $m_V\ll m_{\chi }$, is motivated by the recently discovered mismatch between simulated and observed shapes of galactic halos. Such models, in general, provide a challenge for direct detection efforts and collider searches. We demonstrate that for a large range of coupling constants and masses, the production and decay of the bound states of $\chi$, such as $0^{-+}$ and $1^{--}$ states, ${\eta }_D$ and ${\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}_D$, is an important search channel. We show that $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\eta }_D+V$ or ${\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}_D+\gamma$ production at $B$ factories for ${\alpha }_D>0.1$ is sufficiently strong to result in multiple pairs of charged leptons and pions via ${\eta }_D\to 2V\to 2\left(l^{+}{l}^{-}\right)$ and ${\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}_D\to 3V\to 3\left(l^{+}{l}^{-}\right)$ $(l=e,\mu ,\pi )$. The absence of such final states in the existing searches performed at BABAR and Belle sets new constraints on the parameter space of the model. We also show that a search for multiple bremsstrahlung of dark force mediators, $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to \chi \overline{\chi }+nV$, ending in missing energy and multiple leptons, will further improve the sensitivity to self-interacting dark matter.

• Research Organization: California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); National Science Foundation (NSF); Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0011632; FG02-92ER40701; SC0010255; PHY-1066293
• OSTI ID: 1598357
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1246753
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 116, Issue 15; ISSN 0031-9007
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS