Search

Abstract Atomic dark matter is a simple but highly theoretically motivated possibility for an interacting dark sector that could constitute some or all of dark matter. We perform a comprehensive study of precision cosmological observables on minimal atomic dark matter, exploring for the first time the full parameter space of dark QED coupling and dark electron and proton masses (α D , m e D $$ {m}_{e_D} $$ , m p D $$ {m}_{p_D} $$ ) as well as the two cosmological parameters of aDM mass fraction f D and temperature ratio ξ at time of SM recombination. We also show how aDM can accommodate the (H 0 , S 8) tension from late-time measurements, leading to a better fit than ΛCDM or ΛCDM + dark radiation. Furthermore, including late-time measurements leads to closed contours of preferred ξ and dark hydrogen binding energy. The dark proton mass is seemingly unconstrained. Our results serve as an important new jumping-off point for future precision studies of atomic dark matter at non-linear and smaller scales.

Abstract In this work, we consider the case of a strongly coupled dark/hidden sector, which extends the Standard Model (SM) by adding an additional non-Abelian gauge group. These extensions generally contain matter fields, much like the SM quarks, and gauge fields similar to the SM gluons. We focus on the exploration of such sectors where the dark particles are produced at the LHC through a portal and undergo rapid hadronization within the dark sector before decaying back, at least in part and potentially with sizeable lifetimes, to SM particles, giving a range of possibly spectacular signatures such as emerging or semi-visible jets. Other, non-QCD-like scenarios leading to soft unclustered energy patterns or glueballs are also discussed. After a review of the theory, existing benchmarks and constraints, this work addresses how to build consistent benchmarks from the underlying physical parameters and present new developments for the pythia Hidden Valley module, along with jet substructure studies. Finally, a series of improved search strategies is presented in order to pave the way for a better exploration of the dark showers at the LHC.

Abstract Confining dark sectors with pseudo-conformal dynamics produce SUEPs, or Soft Unclustered Energy Patterns, at colliders: isotropic dark hadrons with soft and democratic energies. We target the experimental nightmare scenario, SUEPs in exotic Higgs decays, where all dark hadrons decay promptly to SM hadrons. First, we identify three promising observables: the charged particle multiplicity, the event ring isotropy, and the matrix of geometric distances between charged tracks. Their patterns can be exploited through a cut-and-count search, supervised machine learning, or an unsupervised autoencoder. We find that the HL-LHC will probe exotic Higgs branching ratios at the per-cent level, even without a detailed knowledge of the signal features. Our techniques can be applied to other SUEP searches, especially the unsupervised strategy, which is independent of overly specific model assumptions and the corresponding precision simulations.

Abstract MATHUSLA is a proposed large-volume displaced vertex (DV) detector, situated on the surface above CMS and designed to search for long-lived particles (LLPs) produced at the HL-LHC. We show that a discovery of LLPs at MATHUSLA would not only prove the existence of BSM physics, it would also uncover the theoretical origin of the LLPs, despite the fact that MATHUSLA gathers no energy or momentum information on the LLP decay products. Our analysis is simple and robust, making it easily generalizable to include more complex LLP scenarios, and our methods are applicable to LLP decays discovered in ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, or other external detectors. In the event of an LLP detection, MATHUSLA can act as a Level-1 trigger for the main detector, guaranteeing that the LLP production event is read out at CMS. We perform an LLP simplified model analysis to show that combining information from the MATHUSLA and CMS detectors would allow the LLP production mode topology to be determined with as few as ∼ 100 observed LLP decays. Underlying theory parameters, like the LLP and parent particle masses, can also be measured with ≲ 10% precision. Together with information on the LLP decay mode from the geometric properties of the observed DV, it is clear that MATHUSLA and CMS together will be able to characterize any newly discovered physics in great detail.