Electroweak Corrections in a Pseudo-Nambu Goldstone Dark Matter Model Revisited

TL;DR

This paper revisits electroweak corrections to dark matter-nucleon scattering in a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson model, clarifying previous conflicting results and updating experimental constraints for future detection prospects.

Contribution

It compares two existing calculation approaches for electroweak corrections, clarifies discrepancies, and updates the parameter space analysis with current experimental constraints.

Findings

Different approaches yield varying cross section results in some parameter regions.

Electroweak corrections can significantly affect the predicted scattering cross section.

Certain parameter regions remain accessible only in future experiments.

Abstract

Having so far only indirect evidence for the existence of Dark Matter a plethora of experiments aims at direct detection of Dark Matter through the scattering of Dark Matter particles off atomic nuclei. For the correct interpretation and identification of the underlying nature of the Dark Matter constituents higher-order corrections to the cross section of Dark Matter-nucleon scattering are important, in particular in models where the tree-level cross section is negligibly small. In this work we revisit the electroweak corrections to the dark matter-nucleon scattering cross section in a model with a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson as the Dark Matter candidate. Two calculations that already exist in the literature, apply different approaches resulting in different final results for the cross section in some regions of the parameter space leading us to redo the calculation and analyse the two approaches to clarify the situation. We furthermore update the experimental constraints and examine the regions of the parameter space where the cross section is above the neutrino floor but which can only be probed in the far future.