English

Probing the Dark Sector with Dark Matter Bound States

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2024-08-30 v3 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Experiment

Abstract

A model of dark sector where O(few GeV)O({\rm few~GeV}) mass dark matter particles χ\chi couple to a lighter dark force mediator VV, mVmχm_V \ll m_\chi, is motivated by the recently discovered mismatch between simulated and observed shapes of galactic haloes. Such models, in general, provide a challenge for direct detection efforts and collider searches. We show that for a large range of coupling constants and masses, the production and decay of the bound states of χ\chi, such as 0+0^{-+} and 11^{--} states, ηD\eta_D and ΥD \Upsilon_D, is an important search channel. We show that e+eηD+Ve^+e^-\to \eta_D +V or ΥD+γ\Upsilon_D +\gamma production at BB-factories for αD>0.1\alpha_D > 0.1 is sufficiently strong to result in multiple pairs of charged leptons and pions via ηD2V2(l+l)\eta_D\to 2V \to 2(l^+l^-) and ΥD3V3(l+l)\Upsilon_D\to 3V \to 3(l^+l^-) (l=e,μ,π)(l=e,\mu,\pi). The absence of such final states in the existing searches performed at \babar\ and Belle sets new constraints on the parameter space of the model. We also show that a search for multiple bremsstrahlung of dark force mediators, e+eχχˉ+nVe^+e^-\to \chi\bar\chi+nV, resulting in missing energy and multiple leptons, will further improve the sensitivity to self-interacting dark matter.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1510.05020,
  title  = {Probing the Dark Sector with Dark Matter Bound States},
  author = {Haipeng An and Bertrand Echenard and Maxim Pospelov and Yue Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1510.05020},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

5 pages, 2 figures. v3: Corrected an overall factor of (1/3) in the decay rate Eq.(8) that was missed in the previous version. It does not affect the validity of any results because we consider prompt decays of dark matter bound states