Fermion dark matter from SO(10)

TL;DR

This paper explores nonsupersymmetric SO(10) models that naturally stabilize fermionic dark matter via matter parity, analyzing different symmetry breaking chains and their implications for gauge unification and particle spectra.

Contribution

It constructs and analyzes SO(10) extensions explaining dark matter through the fermionic Higgs portal, considering two symmetry breaking paths and their phenomenological consequences.

Findings

Dark matter stability is achieved via matter parity in SO(10) models.

Two symmetry breaking chains are analyzed for gauge unification.

Different particle spectra emerge depending on the breaking chain.

Abstract

We construct and analyze nonsupersymmetric SO(10) standard model extensions which explain dark matter (DM) through the fermionic Higgs portal. In these SO(10)-based models the DM particle is naturally stable since a $Z_2$ discrete symmetry, the matter parity, is left at the end of the symmetry breaking chain to the standard model. Potentially realistic models contain the $\bf{10}$ and $\bf{45}$ fermionic representations from which a neutralino-like mass matrix with arbitrary mixings can be obtained. Two different SO(10) breaking chains will be analyzed in light of gauge coupling unification: the standard path $\text{SU}(5)\times U(1)_{X}$ and the left-right symmetry intermediate chain. The former opens the possibility of a split supersymmetric-like spectrum with an additional (inert) scalar doublet, while the later requires additional exotic scalar representations associated to the breaking of the left-right symmetry.