Next-to-Leading Order Predictions for Dark Matter Production at Hadron Colliders

TL;DR

This paper presents NLO QCD predictions for dark matter production at hadron colliders, enhancing the accuracy of signal modeling for monojet and monophoton searches and aiding experimental constraints.

Contribution

It provides the first NLO calculations for fermionic dark matter production with various mediators, integrated into the MCFM Monte Carlo program.

Findings

NLO predictions improve signal modeling accuracy.

Results applicable to a wide range of collider searches.

Enhanced theoretical understanding of dark matter production mechanisms.

Abstract

We provide Next-to-Leading Order (NLO) predictions for Dark Matter (DM) production in association with either a jet or a photon at hadron colliders. In particular we study the production of a pair of fermionic DM particles through a mediator which couples to SM via either a vector, axial-vector, scalar, pseudo-scalar, or gluon-induced coupling. Experimental constraints on the scale of new physics associated with these operators are limited by systematics, highlighting the need for NLO signal modeling. We factorize the NLO QCD and the DM parts of the calculation, allowing the possibility of using the results presented here for a large variety of searches in monojet and monophoton final states. Our results are implemented into the Monte Carlo program MCFM.