Electroweak corrections to the direct detection cross section of inert higgs dark matter

TL;DR

This paper calculates electroweak one-loop corrections to the dark matter detection cross section in the inert Higgs model, showing these corrections significantly alter predictions and make detection more feasible.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of electroweak corrections to the inert Higgs dark matter direct detection cross section, highlighting their importance.

Findings

Electroweak corrections can significantly increase the predicted cross section.

One-loop corrections make the cross section detectable in future experiments.

Corrections are independent of the scalar coupling, simplifying analysis.

Abstract

The inert higgs model is a minimal extension of the Standard Model that features a viable dark matter candidate, the so-called inert higgs ($H^0$). In this paper, we compute and analyze the dominant electroweak corrections to the direct detection cross section of dark matter within this model. These corrections arise from one-loop diagrams mediated by gauge bosons that, contrary to the tree-level result, do not depend on the unknown scalar coupling $\lambda$. We study in detail these contributions and show that they can modify in a significant way the prediction of the spin-independent direct detection cross section. In both viable regimes of the model, $\mh<M_W$ and $\mh\gtrsim 500 \gev$, we find regions where the cross section at one-loop is much larger than at tree-level. We also demonstrate that, over the entire viable parameter space of this model, these new contributions bring the spin-independent cross section within the reach of future direct detection experiments.