Spectroscopy of Scalar Mediators to Dark Matter at the LHC and at 100 TeV

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential of current and future hadron colliders to detect scalar mediators of dark matter through jets and missing energy signatures, and explores how to determine mediator properties.

Contribution

It provides projected collider reach for scalar dark matter mediators and methods to distinguish models based on kinematic distributions.

Findings

LHC can probe mediators up to 750 GeV

Future 100 TeV collider can reach 2.5 TeV mediators

Kinematic distributions help differentiate mediator masses

Abstract

We investigate simplified models of dark matter with scalar mediators at hadron colliders using the final state topology with 2 jets and missing energy. These models can arise in a wide variety of BSM scenarios including the possibility of the mediator mixing with the Higgs. Our aim is first to determine the projected reach of the LHC and the future circular hadron collider for excluding such models. Secondly, we use the kinematic distributions to extract information on mediator masses. At the 13 TeV LHC we can probe mediator masses up to 750 GeV, and at a 100 TeV collider the reach is increased to 2.5 TeV mediators. We also explain how individual models with different values of mediator masses can be differentiated from each other.