Seesaw Portal to Super Heavy Dark Matter with $Z_3$ Symmetry

TL;DR

This paper proposes a $Z_3$ symmetric model that enables super heavy dark matter production via a new decay channel, overcoming cosmological constraints faced by $Z_2$ symmetric models, and explores its phenomenology.

Contribution

It introduces a $Z_3$ symmetry extension allowing a new decay mode for the dark scalar, making the model cosmologically viable and analyzing its phenomenological implications.

Findings

The $Z_3$ symmetry enables a short-lived dark scalar $phi$ via $phi o chichi$ decay.

The model remains consistent with Big Bang Nucleosynthesis constraints.

Phenomenological analysis of super heavy dark matter in the $Z_3$ symmetric framework.

Abstract

Right-handed neutrinos $N$ are introduced to explain the origin of the tiny neutrino masses via the seesaw mechanism. Required by relatively large Yukawa coupling and leptogenesis, masses of right-handed neutrinos are beyond $10^{9}$ GeV. Such heavy right-handed neutrino can mediate the production of super heavy dark matter $\chi$ via the freeze-in mechanism. In the minimal $Z_2$ symmetric model, the right-hand neutrino portal interaction is $y_N \phi \bar{\chi} N$ with the dark scalar $\phi$. One drawback of the $Z_2$ symmetric model is that the mass ordering $m_N>m_\phi$ with long-lived $\phi$ is almost ruled out by Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. In this paper, we propose that by extending the dark symmetry to $Z_3$, one additional interaction $y_\chi \phi \bar{\chi}^c \chi$ is further allowed. In this way, the new decay mode $\phi\to \chi\chi$ would lead to the dark scalar $\phi$ being short-lived even with a feeble $y_\chi$, thus it is allowed by the cosmological constraints. The phenomenology of the $Z_3$ symmetric super heavy dark matter model is also studied in this paper.