Cosmic Signals from the Hidden Sector

TL;DR

This paper explores a dark matter model involving long-lived composite states and axion-like particles from a hidden sector, analyzing astrophysical and collider signals, and connecting recent cosmic ray data to this scenario.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dark matter framework with decay into axion-like particles via dimension six operators, motivated by low-energy supersymmetry breaking.

Findings

Dark matter decays can explain PAMELA, FERMI, and H.E.S.S. observations.

The model predicts specific gamma-ray signatures for future detection.

Collider searches can potentially observe related axion-like states.

Abstract

Cosmologically long-lived, composite states arise as natural dark matter candidates in theories with a strongly interacting hidden sector at a scale of 10 - 100 TeV. Light axion-like states, with masses in the 1 MeV - 10 GeV range, are also generic, and can decay via Higgs couplings to light standard model particles. Such a scenario is well motivated in the context of very low energy supersymmetry breaking, where ubiquitous cosmological problems associated with the gravitino are avoided. We investigate the astrophysical and collider signatures of this scenario, assuming that dark matter decays into the axion-like states via dimension six operators, and we present an illustrative model exhibiting these features. We conclude that the recent data from PAMELA, FERMI, and H.E.S.S. points to this setup as a compelling paradigm for dark matter. This has important implications for future diffuse gamma ray measurements and collider searches.