Building Kinetic Mixing From Scalar Portal Matter

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel scalar portal matter model where a dark photon kinetically mixes with the photon through scalar fields, offering a testable alternative to heavy fermion models for dark sector interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a scalar-based mechanism for kinetic mixing between dark and visible photons, differing from traditional fermion-based models, and explores its phenomenological implications.

Findings

Scalar portal matter induces finite kinetic mixing at one loop.

Model predicts light scalar states with suppressed SM couplings.

High-luminosity LHC could probe the entire model parameter space.

Abstract

The nature of dark matter (DM) and how it might interact with the particles of the Standard Model (SM) is an ever-growing mystery. It is possible that the existence of new `dark sector' forces, yet undiscovered, are the key to solving this fundamental problem. In this paper, we construct a model in which a dark photon mediates interactions with the SM via kinetic mixing. Unlike traditional models, in which the dark photon, which couples to a dark charge, $Q_D$, mixes with the hypercharge boson, our model effectively mixes the dark photon directly with the photon after electroweak symmetry is broken, but remains unmixed until the symmetry breaks. The kinetic mixing is generated at one loop by fields which satisfy $\sum Q_D Q_{em} = 0$, a condition which guarantees a finite result at one loop. In the literature, this has been traditionally obtained via heavy fermions, which may lie out of the reach of current accelerators. In this model, by contrast, this process is mediated by scalar `portal matter' fields, which are charged under the $SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$ of the standard model as well as the dark gauge group $U(1)_D$ and acquire GeV-scale vevs which give mass to the dark Higgs and dark photon. The additional scalar fields are relatively light, at or below the weak scale, yet may remain undetected by current experiments since their couplings to SM fermions come only through percent level mixing with the SM Higgs. At colliders, these models are typified by relatively low MET due the BSM states decaying into MET and SM bosons, with MET which is balanced by the decay of the associated production object. Nevertheless, the higher statistics of HL-LHC may be able to probe the entirety of the model space.