Constraining the interaction strength between dark matter and visible matter: I. fermionic dark matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates constraints on fermionic dark matter interactions with standard model particles using relic density, direct detection, and indirect detection data, revealing complementary sensitivities and strong bounds, especially for light dark matter.

Contribution

It provides a model-independent analysis of effective four-fermion operators constraining dark matter interactions with standard model particles.

Findings

Spin-independent scattering yields strong constraints.

Indirect detection can surpass direct detection for light dark matter.

Constraints are complementary across different observational methods.

Abstract

In this work we study the constraints on the dark matter interaction with the standard model particles, from the observations of dark matter relic density, the direct detection experiments of CDMS and XENON, and the indirect detection of the antiproton-to-proton ratio by PAMELA. A model independent way is adopted in the study by constructing the effective interaction operators between dark matter and standard model particles. The most general 4-fermion operators are investigated. We find that the constraints from different observations are complementary with each other. Especially the spin independent scattering gives very strong constraints for corresponding operators. In some cases the indirect detection of antiproton-to-proton data can actually be more sensitive than the direct detection or relic density for light dark matter (less than 70 GeV).