Simple fermionic dark matter models and Higgs boson couplings

TL;DR

This paper explores a simple extension of the Standard Model with fermionic dark matter and a charged scalar, predicting correlations between dark matter detection signals and Higgs boson decay modifications, with implications for future experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a minimal model linking dark matter interactions with Higgs couplings and predicts observable correlations for direct detection and Higgs decay measurements.

Findings

Dark matter-nucleus cross section correlates with Higgs to diphoton coupling deviations.

Dirac dark matter has a loop-induced magnetic dipole moment affecting detection.

Predicted cross sections are near current experimental bounds, testable soon.

Abstract

We consider a simple extension of the Standard Model (SM) that incorporates a Majorana fermion dark matter and a charged scalar particle with a coupling to the SM leptons through renormalizable terms. Another renormalizable term involving the charged scalar and the Higgs boson gives rise to interactions between the dark matter and SM quarks at the one-loop level, which induce the elastic scatterings between dark matter and nucleus. The same term also affects the effective coupling of the Higgs boson to diphoton through a one-loop diagram with the charged scalar. Therefore, our model predicts a correlation between the spin-independent cross section for dark matter-nucleus elastic scatterings and a new contribution to the effective Higgs boson coupling to diphoton. When the spin-dependent cross section is large enough to be tested in future direct dark matter detection experiments, the Higgs-diphoton decay rate shows a sizable deviation from the SM prediction. We also consider the case where the fermion dark matter is a Dirac particle. Most of discussions is similar to the Majorana case, but we find that the magnetic dipole moment of the Dirac fermion dark matter is loop-induced and this interaction dominates the spin-independent cross section for dark matter-nucleus elastic scatterings. We find that the resultant cross section is about an order of magnitude below the current experimental bound and hence can be tested in the near future.