Dark matter blind spots at one-loop

Abstract

We evaluate the impact of one-loop electroweak corrections to the spinindependent dark matter (DM) scattering cross-section with nucleons (σ SI), in models with a so-called blind spot for direct detection, where the leading-order prediction for the relevant DM coupling to the Higgs boson, and therefore σ SI , are vanishingly small. Adopting a simple illustrative scenario in which the DM state results from the mixing of electroweak singlet and doublet fermions, we compute the relevant higher order corrections to the scalar effective operator contributions to σ SI , stemming from both triangle and box diagrams involving the SM and dark sector fields. It is observed that in a significant region of the singlet-doublet model-space, the one-loop corrections "unblind" the tree-level blind spots and lead to detectable SI scattering rates at future multi-ton scale liquid Xenon experiments, with σ SI reaching values up to a few times 10 −47 cm 2 , for a weak scale DM with O(1) Yukawa couplings. Furthermore, we find that there always exists a new SI blind spot at the next-to-leading order, which is perturbatively shifted from the leading order one in the singlet-doublet mass parameters. For comparison, we also present the tree-level spin-dependent scattering cross-sections near the SI blind-spot region, that could lead to a larger signal. Our results can be mapped to the blind-spot scenario for bino-Higgsino DM in the MSSM, with other sfermions, the heavier Higgs boson, and the wino decoupled.

Scalar neutrino dark matter in U(1)XSSM

“…The supersymmetric partners of the right-handed neutrinos will provide an alternative dark matter candidate [20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. There are also other works on sneutrino dark matter [22,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. At last but not least, it is worth mentioning that U(1) extensions of the MSSM considered in the works [35][36][37][38][39] have been of great interest lately.…”

Pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone dark matter and two-Higgs-doublet models

“…A natural way out is to suppress DM-nucleon scattering in direct detection experiments without suppressing DM annihilation in the early Universe. One possibility is that there are some blind spots with particular parameters leading to the suppression of the DM couplings relevant to direct detection [7][8][9][10][11]. Additionally, the relevant DM couplings could vanish due to special symmetries [12][13][14][15][16][17].…”

Pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone dark matter: Examples of vanishing direct detection cross section

“…Interesting possibilities include those that do not follow standard DM annihilation to SM particles and alter the way the DM freezes-out, 1 for example "secluded" [3,4] and "cannibal" [5] DM models. Other possibilities include suppression of the interaction between DM and the nucleons due to a heavy (integrated-out) mediator [6][7][8][9][10][11], the appearance of "blind spots" [12][13][14] or the smallness of the DM mass [15][16][17][18][19][20][21] (including in some cases "frozen-in" DM [22]) which makes the DM particle inaccessible to such experiments. 2 Among particularly appealing scenarios, however, direct detection experiments are unable to detect the WIMP due to symmetry arguments [30][31][32][33][34].…”