Decaying Dark Matter from Dark Instantons

TL;DR

This paper presents a TeV-scale decaying dark matter model where stability is due to a global symmetry broken by dark gauge instantons, with decay primarily into leptons and annihilation via the Higgs portal, aligning with experimental data.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel dark matter model where decay stability arises from instanton effects of a dark gauge group, compatible with astrophysical observations.

Findings

Dark matter mass and lifetime are consistent with PAMELA and Fermi LAT data.

Decay channels predominantly produce standard model leptons.

Annihilation occurs mainly through the Higgs portal.

Abstract

We construct an explicit, TeV-scale model of decaying dark matter in which the approximate stability of the dark matter candidate is a consequence of a global symmetry that is broken only by instanton-induced operators generated by a non-Abelian dark gauge group. The dominant dark matter decay channels are to standard model leptons. Annihilation of the dark matter to standard model states occurs primarily through the Higgs portal. We show that the mass and lifetime of the dark matter candidate in this model can be chosen to be consistent with the values favored by fits to data from the PAMELA and Fermi LAT experiments.