On the Validity of the Effective Field Theory for Dark Matter Searches at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper examines the limitations of using effective field theory to model dark matter interactions at the LHC, providing criteria to determine its validity based on energy scales and couplings.

Contribution

It introduces new quantities to quantify the error of the EFT approach and establishes criteria for its validity depending on dark matter parameters.

Findings

Effective field theory validity depends on cutoff energy scale and dark matter properties.

Quantitative measures of the error in EFT descriptions are proposed.

Guidelines for the energy range where EFT remains a good approximation.

Abstract

We discuss the limitations to the use of the effective field theory approach to study dark matter at the LHC. We introduce and study a few quantities, some of them independent of the ultraviolet completion of the dark matter theory, which quantify the error made when using effective operators to describe processes with very high momentum transfer. Our criteria indicate up to what cutoff energy scale, and with what precision, the effective description is valid, depending on the dark matter mass and couplings.