skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Dark matter detection, Standard Model parameters and Intermediate Scale Supersymmetry
A bstract The vanishing of the Higgs quartic coupling at a high energy scale may be explained by Intermediate Scale Supersymmetry, where supersymmetry breaks at (10 9 -10 12 ) GeV. The possible range of supersymmetry breaking scales can be narrowed down by precise measurements of the top quark mass and the strong coupling constant. On the other hand, nuclear recoil experiments can probe Higgsino or sneutrino dark matter up to a mass of 10 12 GeV. We derive the correlation between the dark matter mass and precision measurements of standard model parameters, including supersymmetric threshold corrections. The dark matter mass is bounded from above as a function of the top quark mass and the strong coupling constant. The top quark mass and the strong coupling constant are bounded from above and below respectively for a given dark matter mass. We also discuss how the observed dark matter abundance can be explained by freeze-out or freeze-in during a matter-dominated era after inflation, with the inflaton condensate being dissipated by thermal effects.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1915314
PAR ID:
10444935
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of High Energy Physics
Volume:
2021
Issue:
4
ISSN:
1029-8479
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. A bstract The standard model Higgs quartic coupling vanishes at (10 9 − 10 13 ) GeV. We study SU(2) L × SU(2) R × U(1) B−L theories that incorporate the Higgs Parity mechanism, where this becomes the scale of Left-Right symmetry breaking, v R . Furthermore, these theories solve the strong CP problem and predict three right-handed neutrinos. We introduce cosmologies where SU(2) R × U(1) B−L gauge interactions produce right-handed neutrinos via the freeze-out or freeze-in mechanisms. In both cases, we find the parameter space where the lightest right-handed neutrino is dark matter and the decay of a heavier one creates the baryon asymmetry of the universe via leptogenesis. A theory of flavor is constructed that naturally accounts for the lightness and stability of the right-handed neutrino dark matter, while maintaining sufficient baryon asymmetry. The dark matter abundance and successful natural leptogenesis require v R to be in the range (10 10 − 10 13 ) GeV for freeze-out, in remarkable agreement with the scale where the Higgs quartic coupling vanishes, whereas freeze-in requires v R ≳ 10 9 GeV. The allowed parameter space can be probed by the warmness of dark matter, precise determinations of the top quark mass and QCD coupling by future colliders and lattice computations, and measurement of the neutrino mass hierarchy. 
    more » « less
  2. null (Ed.)
    A bstract A search for new phenomena with top quark pairs in final states with one isolated electron or muon, multiple jets, and large missing transverse momentum is performed. Signal regions are designed to search for two-, three-, and four-body decays of the directly pair-produced supersymmetric partner of the top quark (stop). Additional signal regions are designed specifically to search for spin-0 mediators that are produced in association with a pair of top quarks and decay into a pair of dark-matter particles. The search is performed using the Large Hadron Collider proton-proton collision dataset at a centre-of-mass energy of $$ \sqrt{s} $$ s = 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector from 2015 to 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb − 1 . No significant excess above the Standard Model background is observed, and limits at 95% confidence level are set in the stop-neutralino mass plane and as a function of the mediator mass or the dark-matter particle mass. Stops are excluded up to 1200 GeV (710 GeV) in the two-body (three-body) decay scenario. In the four-body scenario stops up to 640 GeV are excluded for a stop-neutralino mass difference of 60 GeV. Scalar and pseudoscalar dark-matter mediators are excluded up to 200 GeV when the coupling strengths of the mediator to Standard Model and dark-matter particles are both equal to one and when the mass of the dark-matter particle is 1 GeV. 
    more » « less
  3. A higgsino could be some or all of the dark matter, with a mass bounded from above by about 1.1 TeV assuming a thermal freeze-out density, and from below by collider searches. Direct detection experiments imply purity constraints on a dark matter higgsino, limiting the mixing with the electroweak gauginos. Using the new strong limits available as of the end of 2024 from the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment, I quantify the resulting lower bounds on gaugino masses and upper bounds on higgsino mass splittings, assuming that the scalar superpartners and Higgs bosons of minimal supersymmetry are in the decoupling limit. Similar bounds are projected for the critical future scenario that direct detection experiments reach the neutrino fog that hampers discovery prospects. 
    more » « less
  4. A bstract We propose a baryogenenesis mechanism that uses a rotating condensate of a Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry breaking field and the dimension-five operator that gives Majorana neutrino masses. The rotation induces charge asymmetries for the Higgs boson and for lepton chirality through sphaleron processes and Yukawa interactions. The dimension-five interaction transfers these asymmetries to the lepton asymmetry, which in turn is transferred into the baryon asymmetry through the electroweak sphaleron process. QCD axion dark matter can be simultaneously produced by dynamics of the same PQ field via kinetic misalignment or parametric resonance, favoring an axion decay constant f a ≲ 10 10 GeV, or by conventional misalignment and contributions from strings and domain walls with f a ∼ 10 11 GeV. The size of the baryon asymmetry is tied to the mass of the PQ field. In simple supersymmetric theories, it is independent of UV parameters and predicts the supersymmtry breaking mass scale to be $$ \mathcal{O} $$ O (10 − 10 4 ) TeV, depending on the masses of the neutrinos and whether the condensate is thermalized during a radiation or matter dominated era. The high supersymmetry breaking mass scale may be free from cosmological and flavor/CP problems. We also construct a theory where TeV scale supersymmetry is possible. Parametric resonance may give warm axions, and the radial component of the PQ field may give signals in rare kaon decays from mixing with the Higgs and in dark radiation. 
    more » « less
  5. A<sc>bstract</sc> We study the phenomenology of superheavy decaying dark matter with mass around 1010GeV which can arise in the low-energy limit of string compactifications. Generic features of string theory setups (such as high scale supersymmetry breaking and epochs of early matter domination driven by string moduli) can accommodate superheavy dark matter with the correct relic abundance. In addition, stringy instantons induce tinyR-parity violating couplings which make dark matter unstable with a lifetime well above the age of the Universe. Adopting a model-independent approach, we compute the flux and spectrum of high-energy gamma rays and neutrinos from three-body decays of superheavy dark matter and constrain its mass-lifetime plane with current observations and future experiments. We show that these bounds have only a mild dependence on the exact nature of neutralino dark matter and its decay channels. Applying these constraints to an explicit string model sets an upper bound of$$ \mathcal{O} $$ O (0.1) on the string coupling, ensuring that the effective field theory is in the perturbative regime. 
    more » « less