Effective Theory for Dark Matter and a New Force in the Dark Matter Sector

TL;DR

This paper discusses the instability of dark matter models protected by global symmetries due to quantum gravity effects and proposes a local gauge symmetry with a new force to stabilize dark matter and explain cosmic ray observations.

Contribution

It introduces a local gauge symmetry in dark matter models to prevent decay caused by quantum gravity, enabling explanations of cosmic ray data with TeV-scale dark matter.

Findings

Quantum gravity violates global symmetries, causing dark matter decay.

A local gauge symmetry can stabilize dark matter.

Sommerfeld enhancement explains cosmic ray excesses.

Abstract

An effective theory for dark matter has recently been proposed. The key assumption is that the dark matter particle which is a Dirac fermion is protected from decaying by a global U(1) symmetry. We point out that quantum gravity effects will violate this symmetry and that the dark matter candidate thus decays very fast. In order to solve that problem, we propose to consider a local gauge symmetry which implies a new force in the dark matter sector. It is likely that this new local U(1) symmetry will need to be spontaneously broken leading for a range of the parameters of the model to a Sommerfeld enhancement of the annihilation cross-sections which is useful to explain the Pamela and ATIC results using a weakly interacting massive particle with a mass in the TeV range.