Modular flavored dark matter

TL;DR

This paper introduces a modular flavor symmetry model that simplifies flavor structure explanations and simultaneously accounts for dark matter relic abundance, combining modular symmetry with flavon vacuum alignment.

Contribution

It presents a novel modular flavor symmetry model that achieves realistic flavor predictions and includes a viable fermionic dark matter candidate.

Findings

Successfully explains observed flavor structure

Provides a consistent dark matter relic abundance

Reduces model parameters through modular symmetry

Abstract

Discrete flavor symmetries have been an appealing approach for explaining the observed flavor structure, which is not justified in the Standard Model (SM). Typically, these models require a so-called flavon field in order to give rise to the flavor structure upon the breaking of the flavor symmetry by the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of the flavon. Generally, in order to obtain the desired vacuum alignment, a flavon potential that includes additional so-called driving fields is required. On the other hand, allowing the flavor symmetry to be modular leads to a structure where the couplings are all holomorphic functions that depend only on a complex modulus, thus greatly reducing the number of parameters in the model. We show that these elements can be combined to simultaneously explain the flavor structure and dark matter (DM) relic abundance. We present a modular model with flavon vacuum alignment that allows for realistic flavor predictions while providing a successful fermionic DM candidate.