Interplay between Electroweak Symmetry Breaking and Higgs Portal Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates how electroweak symmetry breaking influences dark matter relic density calculations in Higgs portal models, emphasizing the importance of including these effects for accurate parameter space analysis.

Contribution

It provides a model-independent assessment of electroweak symmetry breaking effects on dark matter relic density calculations, highlighting potential misidentifications of viable regions.

Findings

Ignoring electroweak symmetry breaking can lead to incorrect exclusion of viable models.

Including the effect alters the viable parameter space significantly.

The study offers a method to measure the impact of electroweak symmetry breaking on relic density calculations.

Abstract

Models of Dark Matter must contend with the fact that the presence of electroweak symmetry breaking along the thermal evolution of the Universe modifies the masses, interactions and, thus, the thermally averaged cross sections. We study in detail the impact of taking (not taking) the presence of the electroweak symmetry breaking into account in the calculations of the Dark Matter relic density in Higgs portal models, providing a model-independent measure of such differences. By focusing on a particular model, we show that ignoring this effect can lead to the inclusion (exclusion) of wrong (viable) regions of parameter space.