A cancellation mechanism for dark matter-nucleon interaction

TL;DR

This paper proposes a Higgs portal dark matter model where a softly broken symmetry causes a cancellation in the direct detection cross section, naturally satisfying phenomenological constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a novel cancellation mechanism in Higgs portal models that eliminates the direct detection signal at tree level for any mediator mass.

Findings

Direct detection cross section vanishes at tree level and zero momentum transfer.

The cancellation mechanism works for any mediator mass.

The model naturally satisfies phenomenological constraints.

Abstract

We consider a simple Higgs portal dark matter model, where the Standard Model is supplemented with a complex scalar whose imaginary part plays the role of WIMP dark matter (DM). We show that the direct DM detection cross section vanishes at tree level and zero momentum transfer due to a cancellation by virtue of a softly broken symmetry. This cancellation is operative for any mediator masses. As a result, our electroweak scale dark matter satisfies all of the phenomenological constraints quite naturally.