Isospin-Violating Dark Matter at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates how isospin-violating dark matter interactions can be detected at the LHC through specific event ratios and signatures, providing methods to distinguish coupling differences and signs.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to identify isospin violation in dark matter couplings at the LHC using mono-jet, mono-photon, and di-jet events, including effects of mediators.

Findings

Ratios of mono-photon to mono-jet events reveal coupling magnitude differences.

Di-jet plus missing energy events can determine the sign of coupling differences.

Methods are applicable to various new physics models with unequal up and down quark couplings.

Abstract

We consider a toy model of dark matter (DM) with a gauge singlet Dirac fermion that has contact interactions to quarks that differ for right-handed up and down quarks. This is motivated by the isospin-violating dark matter scenario that was proposed to reconcile reported hints of direct DM detection with bounds from non-observation of the signal in other experiments. We discuss how the effects of isospin violation in these couplings can be observed at the LHC. By studying events with large missing transverse momentum, we show that the ratio of mono-photon and mono-jet events is sensitive to the ratio of the absolute values of the couplings to the up and down quarks, while a dedicated study of di-jet plus missing transverse momentum events can reveal their relative sign. We also consider how our results are modified if instead of a contact interaction, a particle that mediates the interaction is introduced. Our methods have broad applicability to new physics that involves unequal couplings to up and down quarks.