Up-type FCNC in presence of Dark Matter

Dark Matter (DM) is a known unknown. Apart, current experimental constraints on flavor-changing neutral current (FCNC) processes involving up-type quarks also provide scope to explore physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). In this article, we establish a connection between the flavor sector and the DM sector with minimal extension of the SM. Here a singlet complex scalar field, stable under $\mathbb{Z}_3$ symmetry, acts as DM and couples to SM up-type quarks through a heavy Dirac vector-like quark (VLQ), which shares the same $\mathbb{Z}_3$ charge as of the DM. The model thus addresses the observed $D^0-\bar{D^0}$ mixing, top-FCNC interactions, and $D^0$ meson decays, together with DM relic density, while evading the direct and indirect DM search bounds. The model can be probed at the future high-energy muon collider, through distinctive signatures of VLQ production, where the VLQ decays into DM and SM particles, abiding by the existing bounds.