# Dark Matter Through the Quark Vector Current Portal

## TL;DR

This paper investigates light dark matter interactions with quarks via a vector current, modeling meson couplings through the chiral Lagrangian to predict annihilation, decay rates, and photon spectra, assessing observational prospects.

## Contribution

It introduces a framework for analyzing light dark matter coupled to quarks via vector currents using chiral Lagrangian techniques, providing new predictions for observable signals.

## Key findings

- Dark matter annihilation produces distinct photon spectra.
- Current observations can constrain these models.
- Future experiments have significant discovery potential.

## Abstract

We consider models of light dark matter coupled to quarks through a vector current interaction. For low energies, these models must be treated through the effective couplings to mesons, which are implemented here through the chiral Lagrangian. We find the rates of dark matter annihilation and decay to the light mesons, and find the expected photon spectrum from the decay of the hadrons. We compare to current and future observations, and show that there is a significant discovery reach for these models.