WIMPless Dark Matter from Non-Abelian Hidden Sectors with Anomaly-Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking

TL;DR

This paper explores various WIMPless dark matter models within anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking frameworks, highlighting their unique properties, potential astrophysical signals, and testability through cosmological and collider constraints.

Contribution

It introduces novel WIMPless dark matter scenarios with non-Abelian hidden sectors, demonstrating their viability and distinctive phenomenology in AMSB models.

Findings

Hidden gluinos can have the correct relic density and low confinement scales.

Hidden gluinos may decay to visible Winos, matching observed dark matter abundance.

Hidden glueballs could be stable or decay, affecting dark matter composition and signals.

Abstract

In anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking (AMSB) models, superpartner masses are proportional to couplings squared. Their hidden sectors therefore naturally contain WIMPless dark matter, particles whose thermal relic abundance is guaranteed to be of the correct size, even though they are not weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs). We study viable dark matter candidates in WIMPless AMSB models with non-Abelian hidden sectors and highlight unusual possibilities that emerge in even the simplest models. In one example with a pure SU(N) hidden sector, stable hidden gluinos freeze out with the correct relic density, but have an extremely low, but natural, confinement scale, providing a framework for self-interacting dark matter. In another simple scenario, hidden gluinos freeze out and decay to visible Winos with the correct relic density, and hidden glueballs may either be stable, providing a natural framework for mixed cold-hot dark matter, or may decay, yielding astrophysical signals. Last, we present a model with light hidden pions that may be tested with improved constraints on the number of non-relativistic degrees of freedom. All of these scenarios are defined by a small number of parameters, are consistent with gauge coupling unification, preserve the beautiful connection between the weak scale and the observed dark matter relic density, and are natural, with relatively light visible superpartners. We conclude with comments on interesting future directions.