Dark Matter as a remnant of SQCD Inflation

TL;DR

This paper presents a model where dark matter arises as Goldstone bosons from a broken global symmetry in a supersymmetric gauge theory that also explains inflation, with dark matter interacting via a Higgs portal and consistent with observational constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a novel supersymmetric gauge theory framework linking inflation and dark matter, with multiple dark matter candidates and a Higgs portal interaction for thermal freeze-out.

Findings

Dark matter can be identified as Goldstone bosons from symmetry breaking.

The model achieves consistent relic density and satisfies direct detection constraints.

Multiple dark matter particles are possible due to non-abelian symmetry.

Abstract

We propose a strongly coupled supersymmetric gauge theory that can accommodate both the inflation (in the form of generalized hybrid inflation) and dark matter (DM). In this set-up, we identify the DM as the Goldstones associated with the breaking of a global symmetry ($SU(4)\times SU(4) \to SU(4)$) after inflation ends. Due to the non-abelian nature of this symmetry, the scenario provides with multiple DMs. We then construct a low energy theory which generates a Higgs portal like coupling of the DMs with Standard Model (SM), thus allowing them to thermally freeze out. While the scales involved in the inflation either have a dynamical origin or related to UV interpretation in terms of a heavy quark field in the supersymmetric QCD (SQCD) sector, the DM masses however are generated from explicit breaking of the chiral symmetry of the SQCD sector. We discuss DM phenomenology for both degenerate and non-degenerate cases, poised with DM-DM interactions and find allowed region of parameter space in terms of relic density and direct search constraints.