Search

Discovering dark matter at high-energy colliders continues to be a compelling and well-motivated possibility. Weakly interacting massive particles are a particularly interesting class in which the dark matter particles interact with the standard model weak gauge bosons. Neutralinos are a prototypical example that arise in supersymmetric models. In the limit where all other superpartners are decoupled, it is known that for relic density motivated masses, the rates for neutralinos are too small to be discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), but that they may be large enough to observe at 100 TeV. In this work we perform a careful study in the vector boson fusion channel for pure winos and pure Higgsinos. We find that given a systematic uncertainty of 1% (5%), with 3000 fb-1, the LHC is sensitive to winos of 240 GeV (125 GeV) and Higgsinos of 125 GeV (55 GeV). A future 100 TeV collider would be sensitive to winos of 1.1 TeV (750 GeV) and Higgsinos of 530 GeV (180 GeV) with a 1% (5%) uncertainty, also with 3000 fb-1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective contact operators provide the simplest parametrization of dark matter searches at colliders. However, light mediators can significantly change the sensitivity and search strategies. Considering simple models of mediators is an important next step for collider searches. In this paper, we consider the case of a t-channel mediator. Its presence opens up new contributions to the monojet + ET searches and can change the reach significantly. We also study the complementarity between searches for processes of monojet + ET and direct pair production of the mediators. Mediator pair production also gives an important contribution to a CMS-like monojet + ET search, where a second hard jet is allowed. There is a large region of parameter space in which the monojet + ET search provides the stronger limit. Assuming the relic abundance of the dark matter is thermally produced within the framework of this model, we find that in the Dirac fermion dark matter case, there is no region in the parameter space that satisfies the combined constraint of monojet + ET search and direct detection; whereas in the Majorana fermion dark matter case, the mass of dark matter must be larger than about 100 GeV. If the relic abundance requirement is not assumed, the discovery of the t-channel mediator predicts additional new physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the production of ultralight dark photons from a network of near-global, Abelian-Higgs cosmic strings. We find that dark photons produced in this way are nonrelativistic today and can make up all of the dark matter for dark photon masses as small as mA∼10-22 eV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the prospects of searching dark sector models via exotic Z-boson decay at future e+e- colliders with Giga Z and Tera Z options. Four general categories of dark sector models, Higgs portal dark matter, vector-portal dark matter, inelastic dark matter, and axionlike particles, are considered. Focusing on channels motivated by the dark sector models, we carry out a model-independent study of the sensitivities of Z factories in probing exotic decays. The limits on branching ratios of the exotic Z decay are typically O(10-6-10-8.5) for the Giga Z and O(10-7.5-10-11) for the Tera Z, and they are compared with the projection for the high luminosity LHC. We demonstrate that future Z factories can provide its unique and leading sensitivity and highlight the complementarity with other experiments, including the indirect and direct dark matter search limits and the existing collider limits. Future Z factories will play a leading role in uncovering the hidden sector of the Universe in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We continue our exploration of the nearly Peccei-Quinn symmetric limit shared by common singlet extensions of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. This limit has been established as a viable framework for studying subelectroweak scale dark matter phenomenology and has interesting and direct connections to new exotic Higgs decay physics. We present analytic calculations to motivate the important phenomenological features mentioned above. We also discuss benchmark points in this model framework that accommodate the observed Galactic center gamma-ray excess. We emphasize connections between phenomenology of dark matter direct detection and indirect detection, and new exotic decay channels for the 125 GeV Higgs boson. We conclude by identifying two benchmark modes of exotic Higgs decays for h→τ+τ-ET and h→bbET final states and estimate their sensitivity prospects at the LHC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monojet searches are a powerful way to place model-independent constraints on effective operators coupling dark matter to the standard model. For operators generated by the exchange of a scalar mediator, however, couplings to light quarks are suppressed and the prospect of probing such interactions through the inclusive monojet channel at the LHC is limited. We propose dedicated searches, focusing on bottom and top quark final states, to constrain this class of operators. We show that a search in mono b-jets can significantly improve current limits. The mono-b signal arises partly from direct production of b quarks in association with dark matter, but the dominant component is from top quark pair production in the kinematic regime where one top is boosted. A search for tops plus missing energy can strengthen the bounds even more; in this case signal and background have very different missing energy distributions. We find an overall improvement by several orders of magnitude in the bound on the direct detection cross section for scalar or pseudoscalar couplings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The standard model and its extensions predict multiple phase transitions in the early universe. In addition to the electroweak phase transition, one or several of these could occur at energies close to the weak scale. Such phase transitions can leave their imprint on the relic abundance of TeV-scale dark matter. In this paper, we enumerate several physical features of a generic phase transition and parametrize the effect of each on the relic abundance. In particular, we include among these effects the presence of the scalar field vacuum energy and the cosmological constant, which is sensitive to UV physics. Within the context of the standard model Higgs sector, we find that the relic abundance of generic TeV-scale dark matter is affected by the vacuum energy at the order of a fraction of a percent. For scalar field sectors with strong first-order phase transitions, an order 1% apparent tuning of coupling constants may allow corrections induced by the vacuum energy to be of order unity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monojet searches are a powerful way to place model-independent constraints on effective operators coupling dark matter to the standard model. For operators generated by the exchange of a scalar mediator, however, couplings to light quarks are suppressed and the prospect of probing such interactions through the inclusive monojet channel at the LHC is limited. We propose dedicated searches, focusing on bottom and top quark final states, to constrain this class of operators. We show that a search in mono b-jets can significantly improve current limits. The mono-b signal arises partly from direct production of b quarks in association with dark matter, but the dominant component is from top quark pair production in the kinematic regime where one top is boosted. A search for tops plus missing energy can strengthen the bounds even more; in this case signal and background have very different missing energy distributions. We find an overall improvement by several orders of magnitude in the bound on the direct detection cross section for scalar or pseudoscalar couplings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) together with weak lensing measurements of the clustering of large scale cosmological structures and local measurements of the Hubble constant pose a challenge to the standard ΛCDM cosmological model. On one side CMB observations imply a Hubble constant that is lower than local measurements and an amplitude of the lensing signal that is higher than direct measurements from weak lensing surveys. We investigate a way of relieving these tensions by adding dark radiation tightly coupled to an acoustic part of the dark matter sector and compare it to massive neutrino solutions. While these models offer a way of separately relieving the Hubble and weak lensing tensions they are prevented from fully accommodating both at the same time since the CMB requires additional cold dark matter when adding acoustic dark matter or massive neutrinos to preserve the same sharpness of the acoustic peaks which counteracts the desired growth suppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]