Signatures of dark Higgs boson in light fermionic dark matter scenarios

TL;DR

This paper explores how a dark Higgs boson in light fermionic dark matter models influences detection prospects and cosmological constraints, revealing multiple viable scenarios for achieving the correct relic density.

Contribution

It identifies three distinct scenarios where the dark Higgs boson impacts relic density and detection, expanding understanding beyond the pseudo-Dirac regime.

Findings

Multiple scenarios for relic density with dark Higgs influence

Enhanced detection prospects due to dark Higgs effects

Implications for cosmological bounds and experiments

Abstract

Thermal dark matter scenarios based on light (sub-GeV) fermions typically require the presence of an extra dark sector containing both a massive dark photon along with a dark Higgs boson. The latter generates both the dark photon mass and an additional mass term for the dark sector fermions. This simple setup has both rich phenomenology and bright detection prospects at high-intensity accelerator experiments. We point out that in addition to the well studied pseudo-Dirac regime, this model can achieve the correct relic density in three different scenarios, and examine in details their properties and experimental prospects. We emphasize in particular the effect of the dark Higgs boson on both detection prospects and cosmological bounds.