Faint Light from Dark Matter: Classifying and Constraining Dark Matter-Photon Effective Operators
Abstract
Even if Dark Matter (DM) is neutral under electromagnetism, it can still interact with the Standard Model (SM) via photon exchange from higher-dimensional operators. Here we classify the general effective operators coupling DM to photons, distinguishing between Dirac/Majorana fermion and complex/real scalar DM. We provide model-independent constraints on these operators from direct and indirect detection. We also constrain various DM-lepton operators, which induce DM-photon interactions via RG running or which typically arise in sensible UV-completions. This provides a simple way to quickly assess constraints on any DM model that interacts mainly via photon exchange or couples to SM leptons.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1810.00033,
title = {Faint Light from Dark Matter: Classifying and Constraining Dark Matter-Photon Effective Operators},
author = {Bradley J. Kavanagh and Paolo Panci and Robert Ziegler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.00033},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
32 pages + appendices, 9 + 1 figures, 2 + 1 tables. v2: some clarifications and references added; conclusions unchanged; version published in JHEP