Dark phase transition from WIMP: complementary tests from gravitational waves and colliders

TL;DR

This paper explores a minimal dark sector model with a dark phase transition, analyzing how gravitational waves and collider experiments can jointly detect and constrain such scenarios, highlighting their complementarity.

Contribution

It introduces a minimal dark scalar-vector boson plasma model connected to the Standard Model via the Higgs portal, analyzing its phase transition, gravitational wave signals, and detection prospects.

Findings

Dark phase transition produces observable gravitational waves.

Collider and direct detection experiments can complement gravitational wave observations.

Numerical analysis shows promising detection prospects for the minimal dark sector.

Abstract

A dark sector is an interesting place where a strong first-order phase transition, observable gravitational waves and/or a dark matter candidate could arise. However, the experimental tests for such a dark sector could be ambiguous due to the dark content, largely unconstrained parameter space and the connection to the visible world. We consider a minimal dark scalar-vector boson plasma to realize the three mentioned phenomena, with a unique connection to the Standard Model via the Higgs portal coupling. We discuss the important features of the Higgs portal in such a minimal dark sector, namely the dark thermalization, collider tests, and direct detection of dark matter. We perform numerical analyses of the dark phase transition associated with stochastic gravitational waves and dark matter, discussing the complementarity of collider detection, dark matter direct detection and space-based/terrestrial interferometers as a promising avenue to hear and see the minimal dark sector.