Electroweak Corrections to Dark Matter Direct Detection in a Vector Dark Matter Model

TL;DR

This paper calculates next-to-leading order electroweak corrections to the scattering cross section of vector dark matter particles with nucleons, enhancing the precision of direct detection predictions.

Contribution

It provides the first NLO cross section calculation for vector dark matter direct detection, including gauge dependence and theoretical uncertainties.

Findings

NLO corrections significantly affect detection cross sections.

Theoretical uncertainties are quantified and discussed.

Gauge dependence of the results is analyzed.

Abstract

Although many astrophysical and cosmological observations point towards the existence of Dark Matter (DM), the nature of the DM particle has not been clarified to date. In this paper, we investigate a minimal model with a vector DM (VDM) candidate. Within this model, we compute the cross section for the scattering of the VDM particle with a nucleon. We provide the next-to-leading order (NLO) cross section for the direct detection of the DM particle. Subsequently, we study the phenomenological implications of the NLO corrections, in particular with respect to the sensitivity of the direct detection DM experiments. We further investigate more theoretical questions such as the gauge dependence of the results and the remaining theoretical uncertainties due to the applied approximations.