Hidden Sector Dark Matter and LHC Signatures

TL;DR

This paper explores how a gauged hidden sector interacting with the Standard Model could produce detectable signals at the LHC and provide a natural dark matter candidate, with implications for Higgs physics and direct detection.

Contribution

It introduces a model of a gauged hidden sector with kinetic mixing and Higgs interactions, analyzing its LHC signatures and dark matter viability.

Findings

Hidden-sector gauge boson can produce four-lepton signals at the LHC.

Hidden-sector fermion can serve as a viable dark matter candidate.

Higgs signatures at the LHC may be significantly altered.

Abstract

We discuss the implications of a gauged Abelian hidden-sector communicating with the Standard Model (SM) fields via kinetic mixing with the SM hypercharge gauge field, or via the Higgs quartic interaction. We discuss signatures of the hidden-sector gauge boson at the LHC in the four-lepton channel. We show that a hidden-sector fermion can be a natural dark-matter candidate with the correct relic-density, discuss direct-detection prospects, and show how Higgs signatures may be altered at the LHC.