A Thermal Relic Encyclopedia: Dark Matter Candidates Coupled to Quarks

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive catalog of dark matter models with quark-coupled mediators, detailing relic densities, constraints, and key particle physics calculations to aid future research.

Contribution

It systematically analyzes various dark matter and mediator combinations, offering an extensive reference of matrix elements, cross sections, and decay rates for thermal freeze-out models.

Findings

Identified viable dark matter and mediator mass ranges.

Compiled detailed calculations of relic densities and constraints.

Created an encyclopedic reference for dark matter phenomenology.

Abstract

Thermal freeze-out is a compelling framework for naturally generating the dark matter abundance. We systematically study a broad range of dark matter and mediator particle combinations that can viably realize thermal freeze-out, focusing on models in which the mediator couples to Standard Model quarks. In each case, we calculate the relic density and consider existing constraints from accelerators, cosmology, direct detection, and indirect detection over the full range of dark matter and mediator masses. We present an encyclopedic catalog of matrix elements, cross sections, and decay rates which can be used as a reference for future studies of dark matter phenomenology.