Portal Effective Theories: A framework for the model independent description of light hidden sector interactions

Abstract

We present a framework for the construction of portal effective theories (PETs) that couple effective field theories of the Standard Model (SM) to light hidden messenger fields. Using this framework we construct electroweak and strong scale PETs that couple the SM to messengers carrying spin zero, one half, or one. The electroweak scale PETs encompass all portal operators up to dimension five, while the strong scale PETs additionally contain all portal operators of dimension six and seven that contribute at leading order to quark-flavour violating transitions. Using the strong scale PETs, we define a set of portal currents that couple hidden sectors to QCD, and construct portal chiral perturbation theories ($\chi$PTs) that relate these currents to the light pseudoscalar mesons. We estimate the coefficients of the portal $\chi$PT Lagrangian that are not fixed by SM observations using non-perturbative matching techniques and give a complete list of the resulting one- and two-meson portal interactions. From those, we compute transition amplitudes for three golden channels that are used in hidden sector searches at fixed target experiments: i) charged kaon decay into a charged pion and a spin zero messenger, ii) charged kaon decay into a charged lepton and a spin one half messenger, and iii) neutral pion decay into a photon and a spin one messenger. Finally, we compare these amplitudes to specific expressions for models featuring light scalar particles, axion-like particles, heavy neutral leptons, and dark photons.

138 pages, 12 figures, 12 tables

References in corpus (35)

• The automated computation of tree-level and next-to-leading order differential cross sections, and their matching to parton shower simulations
• Secluded WIMP Dark Matter
• Gauge Singlet Scalars as Cold Dark Matter
• Improved Naturalness with a Heavy Higgs: An Alternative Road to LHC Physics
• The Dawn of FIMP Dark Matter: A Review of Models and Constraints
• Collider Probes of Axion-Like Particles
• A possible symmetry of the $\nu$MSM
• Search for $A^{\prime }\to {\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ decays
• The Higgs boson from an extended symmetry
• A Higgs-Higgs bound state due to New Physics at a TeV
• A Clockwork Theory
• Unifying inflation with the axion, dark matter, baryogenesis and the seesaw mechanism
• Review of short-range gravity experiments in the LHC era
• High-precision quark masses and QCD coupling from $n_f=4$ lattice QCD
• Sneutrino cold dark matter, a new analysis: relic abundance and detection rates
• From quarks to nucleons in dark matter direct detection
• Chiral Perturbation Theory Beyond One Loop
• The low-scale approach to neutrino masses
• A Pure-Glue Hidden Valley I. States and Decays
• Direct determination of the strange and light quark condensates from full lattice QCD
• Minimal supergravity sneutrino dark matter and inverse seesaw neutrino masses
• The strong running coupling from the gauge sector of Domain Wall lattice QCD with physical quark masses
• Oscillating Spin-2 Dark Matter
• Minimal semi-annihilating ${\mathbb{Z}}_N$ scalar dark matter
• The Realistic Lattice Determination of alpha_s(M_Z) Revisited
• Self-interacting Spin-2 Dark Matter
• Broken R-Parity in the Sky and at the LHC
• A complete effective field theory for dark matter
• Event generation for beam dump experiments
• Long-lived higgsinos as probes of gravitino dark matter at the LHC
• ${\epsilon }^{\prime }/\epsilon$ in the Standard Model at the Dawn of the 2020s
• MeV-GeV $\gamma$-ray telescopes probing axino LSP/gravitino NLSP as dark matter in the $\mu \nu$SSM
• Light Higgs Production in Hyperon Decay
• Review of Reactor Neutrino Oscillation Experiments
• Testing Naturalness

Cited by in corpus (6)

• FCNC $B$ and $K$ Meson Decays with Light Bosonic Dark Matter
• Upper Bound on Thermal Gravitational Wave Backgrounds from Hidden Sectors
• Flavour anomalies and the muon $g-2$ from feebly interacting particles
• Supernova Limits on Muonic Dark Forces
• Factorizing Hidden Particle Production Rates
• Exploiting exotic LHC datasets for long-lived new particle searches