Discovering Inelastic Thermal-Relic Dark Matter at Colliders

Abstract

Dark Matter particles with inelastic interactions are ubiquitous in extensions of the Standard Model, yet remain challenging to fully probe with existing strategies. We propose a series of powerful searches at hadron and lepton colliders that are sensitive to inelastic dark matter dynamics. In representative models featuring either a massive dark photon or a magnetic dipole interaction, we find that the LHC and BaBar could offer strong sensitivity to the thermal-relic dark matter parameter space for dark matter masses between ~100 MeV-100 GeV and fractional mass-splittings above the percent level; future searches at Belle II with a dedicated monophoton trigger could also offer sensitivity to thermal-relic scenarios with masses below a few GeV. Thermal scenarios with either larger masses or splittings are largely ruled out; lower masses remain viable yet may be accessible with other search strategies.

24 pages, 15 figures. V2: corrected bug affecting non-pointing photon results for MiDM representative model; conclusions largely unchanged. Other minor errors and typos corrected. Submitted to PRD

References in corpus (58)

• PYTHIA 6.4 Physics and Manual
• A Theory of Dark Matter
• Dark Matter Results from 225 Live Days of XENON100 Data
• Secluded WIMP Dark Matter
• Echoes of a Hidden Valley at Hadron Colliders
• Secluded U(1) below the weak scale
• MCFM for the Tevatron and the LHC
• Constraints on Dark Matter from Colliders
• Indirect Dark Matter Signatures in the Cosmic Dark Ages I. Generalizing the Bound on s-wave Dark Matter Annihilation from Planck
• The Tevatron at the Frontier of Dark Matter Direct Detection
• Illuminating Dark Photons with High-Energy Colliders
• Exciting Dark Matter and the INTEGRAL/SPI 511 keV signal
• Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
• LEP Shines Light on Dark Matter
• Updated Search for Spectral Lines from Galactic Dark Matter Interactions with Pass 8 Data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• Maverick dark matter at colliders
• Non-Abelian Dark Sectors and Their Collider Signatures
• Discovering the Higgs Through Highly-Displaced Vertices
• Phenomenology of Hidden Valleys at Hadron Colliders
• Forbidden Dark Matter
• Accelerating the Discovery of Light Dark Matter
• Emerging Jets
• Updated CMB constraints on Dark Matter annihilation cross-sections
• Semi-visible Jets: Dark Matter Undercover at the LHC
• Search for massive, long-lived particles using multitrack displaced vertices or displaced lepton pairs in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Electromagnetic properties of dark matter: dipole moments and charge form factor
• Magnetic Inelastic Dark Matter
• Direct Detection of Multi-component Secluded WIMPs
• Monojet plus soft dilepton signal from light higgsino pair production at LHC14
• Multilepton and Lepton Jet Probes of Sub-Weak-Scale Right-Handed Neutrinos
• Higgs boson decays to four fermions through an abelian hidden sector
• How Dark Are Majorana WIMPs? Signals from MiDM and Rayleigh Dark Matter
• Search for dark matter in events with a Z boson and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Dipolar Dark Matter
• Study of ${\chi }_{cJ}$ decaying into $\varphi$ $K^{\ast }(892)$ $\bar{K}$
• Search for long-lived neutral particles decaying into lepton jets in proton--proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Testing GeV-Scale Dark Matter with Fixed-Target Missing Momentum Experiments
• The Galactic Center Excess from the Bottom Up
• Search for dark matter in events with heavy quarks and missing transverse momentum in $pp$ collisions with the ATLAS detector
• Nearly Degenerate Gauginos and Dark Matter at the LHC
• Signatures of Majorana dark matter with t-channel mediators
• Search for new particles in events with one lepton and missing transverse momentum in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Lepton Jets from Radiating Dark Matter
• DAEdALUS and Dark Matter Detection
• Search for non-pointing and delayed photons in the diphoton and missing transverse momentum final state in 8 TeV $pp$ collisions at the LHC using the ATLAS detector
• Physics Motivation for a Pilot Dark Matter Search at Jefferson Laboratory
• The Invisible Z' at the LHC
• Search for Long-Lived Particles in $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ Collisions
• Mapping monojet constraints onto Simplified Dark Matter Models
• Searching for dilepton resonances below the Z mass at the LHC
• A new approach for detecting compressed bino/wino at the LHC
• Dark Matter Searches with a Mono-Z' jet
• Mono-Z': searches for dark matter in events with a resonance and missing transverse energy
• Probing Bino-Wino Coannihilation at the LHC
• MeV-Scale Dark Matter Deep Underground
• A boost for the EW SUSY hunt: monojet-like search for compressed sleptons at LHC14 with 100 fb^-1
• Enhanced Line Signals from Annihilating Kaluza-Klein Dark Matter
• Hidden Dipole Dark Matter

Cited by in corpus (85)

• Supernova 1987A Constraints on Sub-GeV Dark Sectors, Millicharged Particles, the QCD Axion, and an Axion-like Particle
• FASER: ForwArd Search ExpeRiment at the LHC
• Long-Lived Particles at the Energy Frontier: The MATHUSLA Physics Case
• Light Dark Matter: Models and Constraints
• Feebly-Interacting Particles:FIPs 2020 Workshop Report
• Searching for long-lived particles beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider
• Dark Matter, Millicharges, Axion and Scalar Particles, Gauge Bosons, and Other New Physics with LDMX
• Dark Sectors at the Fermilab SeaQuest Experiment
• Inelastic Dark Matter at the LHC Lifetime Frontier: ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, CODEX-b, FASER, and MATHUSLA
• Collider Searches for Long-Lived Particles Beyond the Standard Model
• Cosmology and Accelerator Tests of Strongly Interacting Dark Matter
• Testing Light Dark Matter Coannihilation With Fixed-Target Experiments
• The High-Energy Frontier of the Intensity Frontier: Closing the Dark Photon, Inelastic Dark Matter, and Muon g-2 Windows
• LHC Searches for Dark Sector Showers
• Expression of Interest for the CODEX-b Detector
• Dark Sunshine: Detecting Dark Matter through Dark Photons from the Sun
• Direct detection and complementary constraints for sub-GeV dark matter
• Revisiting the Dark Photon Explanation of the Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment
• Impact of Resonance on Thermal Targets for Invisible Dark Photon Searches
• Invisible and displaced dark matter signatures at Belle II
• Extending the reach of FASER, MATHUSLA, and SHiP towards smaller lifetimes using secondary particle production
• Self-interacting Dark Matter Without Direct Detection Constraints
• Signatures of Pseudo-Dirac Dark Matter at High-Intensity Neutrino Experiments
• Long-lived Dark Higgs and Inelastic Dark Matter at Belle II
• Compressing the Inert Doublet Model
• Dark Higgs Bosons at Colliders
• Probing naturally light singlets with a displaced vertex trigger
• Exposing Dark Sector with Future Z-Factories
• Revising inelastic dark matter direct detection by including the cosmic ray acceleration
• Dark sector searches with the CMS experiment
• Simplified Models for Displaced Dark Matter Signatures
• Collider Searches for Dark Matter through the Higgs Lens
• Belle II sensitivity to long-lived dark photons
• Displaced Vertices from Pseudo-Dirac Dark Matter
• Exploring properties of long-lived particles in inelastic dark matter models at Belle II
• Constraining Light Thermal Inelastic Dark Matter with NA64
• Dark Matter Candidates and Searches
• Dark Photons from Captured Inelastic Dark Matter Annihilation: Charged Particle Signatures
• Illuminating New Electroweak States at Hadron Colliders
• Off-Diagonal Dark-Matter Phenomenology: Exploring Enhanced Complementarity Relations in Non-Minimal Dark Sectors
• Extending the Discovery Potential for Inelastic-Dipole Dark Matter with FASER
• Science and Project Planning for the Forward Physics Facility in Preparation for the 2024-2026 European Particle Physics Strategy Update
• Energetic long-lived particles in the CMS muon chambers
• Hunting for Dark Matter Coannihilation by Mixing Dijet Resonances and Missing Transverse Energy
• Testing the seesaw mechanisms via displaced right-handed neutrinos from a light scalar at the HL-LHC
• Heavy long-lived coannihilation partner from inelastic Dark Matter model and its signatures at the LHC
• Searching for inelastic dark matter with future LHC experiments
• Dark matter and electroweak phase transition in the mixed scalar dark matter model
• The muon g-2 anomaly confronts new physics in $e^{\pm }$ and ${\mu }^{\pm }$ final states scattering
• New Thermal Relic Targets for Inelastic Vector-Portal Dark Matter
• Probing sub-GeV leptophilic dark matter at Belle II and NA64
• TeV Scale Neutrino Mass Generation, Minimal Inelastic Dark Matter, and High Scale Leptogenesis
• Illuminating the dark: mono-$\gamma$ signals at NA62
• Inelastic Dark Matter from Dark Higgs Boson Decays at FASER
• On the challenges of searching for GeV-scale long-lived particles at the LHC
• Relic Challenges for Vector-Like Fermions as Connectors to a Dark Sector
• The interplay between SM precision, BSM physics and measurements of ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{had}}$ in $\mu$-$e$ scattering
• Search for dark photon and dark matter signatures around electron-positron colliders
• Search for inelastic dark matter in events with two displaced muons and missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV
• Long-lived Searches of Vector-like Lepton and Its Accompanying Scalar at Colliders
• Unlocking the Inelastic Dark Matter Window with Vector Mediators
• A Snowmass Whitepaper: Dark Matter Production at Intensity-Frontier Experiments
• LHC Lifetime Frontier and Visible Decay Searches in Composite Asymmetric Dark Matter Models
• Cosmic-Ray Cooling in Active Galactic Nuclei as a New Probe of Inelastic Dark Matter
• Looking forward to inelastic DM with electromagnetic form factors at FASER and beam dump experiments
• Search for a Dark Higgs Boson Produced in Association with Inelastic Dark Matter at the Belle II Experiment
• Low-mass constraints on WIMP effective models of inelastic scattering using the Migdal effect
• Light dark matter searches with positrons
• From oversimplified to overlooked: the case for exploring Rich Dark Sectors
• Multi-track Displaced Vertices at B-Factories
• Inelastic Dark Matter at the Fermilab Short Baseline Neutrino Program
• Search for boosted dark matter with high-Z material in underground experiments
• The Forward Physics Facility at the High-Luminosity LHC
• Semi-Visible Dark Photon Phenomenology at the GeV Scale
• Searching for displaced vertices with a gaseous tracker for a future e${}^{+}$e${}^{-}$ Higgs factory
• Long-lived Light Mediators in a Higgs Portal Model at the FCC-ee
• Letter of Intent: The Forward Physics Facility
• Reviving MeV-GeV Indirect Detection with Inelastic Dark Matter
• Production of Dark Photons through Higher Electromagnetic Moments at LDMX: Simulations and Model Discrimination
• Probing the explanation of the muon (g-2) anomaly and thermal light dark matter with the semi-visible dark photon channel
• Inelastic Dirac Dark Matter
• The Dark Photon: a 2026 Perspective
• Atmospheric resonant production for light dark sectors
• Probing inelastic sub-GeV dark matter at the DUNE near detector
• Search for Higgsinos in final states with low-momentum lepton-track pairs at 13 TeV