Connecting Dark Matter UV Complete Models to Direct Detection Rates via Effective Field Theory

TL;DR

This paper develops an effective field theory framework to connect dark matter models with direct detection experiments, incorporating renormalization group evolution to account for loop effects and extending the applicability to various WIMP interaction scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive EFT approach with RGE analysis for singlet fermion WIMPs, enabling model-independent predictions for direct detection rates across different interaction types.

Findings

Large parameter space regions are excluded due to SM loop-induced couplings.

The EFT framework can be matched to renormalizable models for broader applicability.

Results facilitate combining direct detection with collider and indirect searches.

Abstract

Direct searches for WIMPs are sensitive to physics well below the weak scale. In the absence of light mediators, it is fruitful to apply an Effective Field Theory (EFT) approach accounting only for dark matter (DM) interactions with Standard Model (SM) fields. We consider a singlet fermion WIMP and effective operators up to dimension 6 which are generated at the mass scale of particles mediating DM interactions with the SM. We perform a one-loop Renormalization Group Evolution (RGE) analysis, evolving these effective operators from the mediators mass scale to the nuclear scales probed by direct searches. We apply our results to models with DM velocity-suppressed interactions, DM couplings only to heavy quarks, leptophilic DM and Higgs portal, which without our analysis would not get constrained from direct detection bounds. Remarkably, a large parameter space region for these models is found to be excluded as a consequence of spin-independent couplings induced by SM loops. In addition to these examples, we stress that more general renormalizable models for singlet fermion WIMP can be matched onto our EFT framework, and the subsequent model-independent RGE can be used to compute direct detection rates. Our results allow us to properly connect the different energy scales involved in constraining WIMP models, and to combine information from direct detection with other complementary searches, such as collider and indirect detection.