Characterising dark matter searches at colliders and direct detection experiments: vector mediators

By O. Buchmueller, M. Dolan, S. Malik, C. McCabe. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2014

195 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We introduce a Minimal Simplified Dark Matter (MSDM) framework to quantitatively characterise dark matter (DM) searches at the LHC. We study two MSDM models where the DM is a Dirac fermion which interacts with a vector and axial-vector mediator. The models are characterised by four parameters: mDM, Mmed, gDM and gq, the DM and mediator masses, and the mediator couplings to DM and quarks respectively. The MSDM models accurately capture the full event kinematics, and the dependence on all masses and couplings can be systematically studied. The interpretation of mono-jet searches in this framework can be used to establish an equal-footing comparison with direct detection experiments. For theories with a vector mediator, LHC mono-jet searches possess better sensitivity than direct detection searches for light DM masses (≲5 GeV). For axial-vector mediators, LHC and direct detection searches generally probe orthogonal directions in the parameter space. We explore the projected limits of these searches from the ultimate reach of the LHC and multi-ton xenon direct detection experiments, and find that the complementarity of the searches remains. Finally, we provide a comparison of limits in the MSDM and effective field theory (EFT) frameworks to highlight the deficiencies of the EFT framework, particularly when exploring the complementarity of mono-jet and direct detection searches.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bbdc80e1ee70b38b2c6bd90c8e14483bba506544

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Citations in the corpus

Search for dark matter and other new phenomena in events with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum using the ATLAS detector (2017, background): “[12, 13], which in the case of the axial-vector mediator takes the form:”
A facility to search for hidden particles at the CERN SPS: the SHiP physics case (2015, background): “From [914, 915] we find that for light dark matter,”
Constraining dark sectors with monojets and dijets (2015, methodology): “Here we follow closely the analysis presented in [14] and find good agreement with the results presented there.”
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Recommendations on presenting LHC searches for missing transverse energy signals using simplified s-channel models of dark matter (2016, methodology): “It reflects the feedback obtained from the participants and in subsequent iterations with members of the experiments and of the theory community and it is based on work described recently in [3–9].”
A taste of dark matter: flavour constraints on pseudoscalar mediators (2014, unknown): “We follow the analysis strategy described in [121] based on the ‘pmax’ statistic [122] and we have checked that the binned likelihood method from [123] gives very similar results.”
Dark matter direct-detection experiments (2015, background): “individual dark matter models, collider searches can be interpreted in an eective eld theory (EFT) approach (see e.g.[353][354][355]) or by considering minimal simplied dark-matter models (e.g.[356][357]). It has to be remarked that an EFT approach can only be used for certain dark matter masses and”
Constraining Dark Sectors at Colliders: Beyond the Effective Theory Approach (2014, methodology): “[3,9], the messenger width was computed within the simplified model itself.”