Dark Discrete Gauge Symmetries

TL;DR

This paper explores how dark matter stability can be explained by discrete gauge symmetries, analyzing models with various symmetries and matter content, and examining their phenomenological implications.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive survey of models with Z_N discrete gauge symmetries stabilizing dark matter, including multi-component scenarios and their experimental signatures.

Findings

Multi-component dark matter can produce unique recoil spectra.

Dark sector interactions influence Higgs decays at colliders.

Light dark states can significantly alter decay channels.

Abstract

We investigate scenarios in which dark matter is stabilized by an abelian Z_N discrete gauge symmetry. Models are surveyed according to symmetries and matter content. Multi-component dark matter arises when N is not prime and Z_N contains one or more subgroups. The dark sector interacts with the visible sector through the renormalizable kinetic mixing and Higgs portal operators, and we highlight the basic phenomenology in these scenarios. In particular, multiple species of dark matter can lead to an unconventional nuclear recoil spectrum in direct detection experiments, while the presence of new light states in the dark sector can dramatically affect the decays of the Higgs at the Tevatron and LHC, thus providing a window into the gauge origin of the stability of dark matter.