Quark-flavored scalar dark matter

TL;DR

This paper explores a new class of scalar dark matter models with quark flavor quantum numbers, analyzing their theoretical structure, experimental constraints, and potential to explain astrophysical observations.

Contribution

It introduces UV-complete models of flavored scalar dark matter with specific interactions and investigates their phenomenological implications and experimental signatures.

Findings

Scalar flavored DM can significantly affect B_s mixing amplitudes.

Models are consistent with relic abundance and direct detection constraints.

Potential to explain the galactic center gamma-ray excess.

Abstract

It is an intriguing possibility that dark matter (DM) could have flavor quantum numbers like the quarks. We propose and investigate a class of UV-complete models of this kind, in which the dark matter is in a scalar triplet of an SU(3) flavor symmetry, and interacts with quarks via a colored flavor-singlet fermionic mediator. Such mediators could be discovered at the LHC if their masses are $\sim 1$ TeV. We constrain the DM-mediator couplings using relic abundance, direct detection, and flavor-changing neutral-current considerations. We find that, for reasonable values of its couplings, scalar flavored DM can contribute significantly to the real and imaginary parts of the $B_s$-$\bar B_s$ mixing amplitude. We further assess the potential for such models to explain the galactic center GeV gamma-ray excess.