Light dark sector at colliders and fixed target experiments

TL;DR

This paper examines how light dark sectors, including a dark Higgs boson, influence constraints on sub-GeV thermal dark matter models at collider and fixed target experiments.

Contribution

It analyzes the impact of a dark sector, especially a dark Higgs, on experimental constraints for light dark matter models, highlighting the importance of these particles.

Findings

Dark sector presence constrains collider and fixed target experiments.

Including a dark Higgs affects the experimental bounds.

Light fermionic dark matter models are sensitive to dark sector particles.

Abstract

Minimal scenarios with light (sub-GeV) thermal dark matter are usually accompanied by a correspondingly light "dark sector". Taking as an example a simple fermionic dark matter model, we will show that the presence of the dark sector plays a key role in constraining such scenarios at accelerators experiments. The effect of including a dark Higgs boson in the light spectrum is in particular investigated.