Gauge-Higgs Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates a gauge-Higgs unification model with anti-periodic fermions in a warped extra dimension, identifying a stable dark matter candidate and analyzing its relic abundance and detectability in experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a dark matter candidate arising from anti-periodic fields in a gauge-Higgs unification scenario with warped extra dimensions, providing predictions for relic abundance and detection prospects.

Findings

Identifies parameter regions consistent with observed dark matter relic abundance.

Calculates elastic scattering cross sections, constraining the model with current experiments.

Most of the parameter space will be tested by future direct detection experiments.

Abstract

When the anti-periodic boundary condition is imposed for a bulk field in extradimensional theories, independently of the background metric, the lightest component in the anti-periodic field becomes stable and hence a good candidate for the dark matter in the effective 4D theory due to the remaining accidental discrete symmetry. Noting that in the gauge-Higgs unification scenario, introduction of anti-periodic fermions is well-motivated by a phenomenological reason, we investigate dark matter physics in the scenario. As an example, we consider a five-dimensional SO(5)$\timesU(1)_X$ gauge-Higgs unification model compactified on the $S^1/Z_2$ with the warped metric. Due to the structure of the gauge-Higgs unification, interactions between the dark matter particle and the Standard Model particles are largely controlled by the gauge symmetry, and hence the model has a strong predictive power for the dark matter physics. Evaluating the dark matter relic abundance, we identify a parameter region consistent with the current observations. Furthermore, we calculate the elastic scattering cross section between the dark matter particle and nucleon and find that a part of the parameter region is already excluded by the current experimental results for the direct dark matter search and most of the region will be explored in future experiments.