Higgs Portal Dark Matter Freeze-in at Stronger Coupling: Observational Benchmarks

TL;DR

This paper investigates Higgs portal dark matter production via freeze-in at low temperatures, exploring parameter space with strong couplings that are testable by current experiments.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of dark matter freeze-in at low temperatures with strong Higgs portal couplings, extending previous models and linking to experimental searches.

Findings

Parameter space for strong coupling Higgs portal DM identified

Potential for detection via direct detection and Higgs decay experiments

Dark matter production viable at temperatures below DM mass

Abstract

We study freeze-in production of Higgs portal dark matter (DM) at temperatures far below the dark matter mass. The temperature of the Standard Model (SM) thermal bath may have never been high such that dark matter production via thermal emission has been Boltzmann suppressed. This allows for a significant coupling between the Higgs field and DM, which is being probed by the direct DM detection experiments and invisible Higgs decay searches at the LHC. We delineate the corresponding parameter space in the Higgs portal framework with dark matter of spin 0, 1/2 and 1.