A dark matter WIMP that can be detected and definitively identified with currently planned experiments

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new dark matter WIMP with specific interaction properties that make it consistent with current observations and detectable with upcoming experiments, enabling potential definitive identification.

Contribution

It introduces a dark matter WIMP model with second-order gauge couplings, predicting detectable signals in planned experiments and compatibility with existing astrophysical data.

Findings

Cross-sections align with thermal relic abundance and current gamma-ray and antiproton observations.

Direct detection cross-section estimated below $10^{-47}$ cm$^2$, within reach of future detectors.

Collider detection cross-section around 1 fb, potentially observable at high-luminosity LHC.

Abstract

A recently proposed dark matter WIMP has only second-order couplings to gauge bosons and itself. As a result, it has small annihilation, scattering, and creation cross-sections, and is consequently consistent with all current experiments and the observed abundance of dark matter. These cross-sections are, however, still sufficiently large to enable detection in experiments that are planned for the near future, and definitive identification in experiments proposed on a longer time scale. The (multi-channel) cross-section for annihilation is consistent with thermal production and freeze-out in the early universe, and with current evidence for dark matter annihilation in analyses of the observations of gamma rays by Fermi-LAT and antiprotons by AMS-02, as well as the constraints from Planck and Fermi-LAT. The cross-section for direct detection via collision with xenon nuclei is estimated to be slightly below $10^{-47}$ cm$^2$, which should be attainable by LZ and Xenon nT and well within the reach of Darwin. The cross-section for collider detection via vector boson fusion is estimated to be $\sim 1$ fb, and may be ultimately attainable by the high-luminosity LHC; definitive collider identification will probably require the more powerful facilities now being proposed.