A new connection between WIMP dark matter and the hierarchy problem
Maximilian Detering, Thomas Steingasser, Tevong You

TL;DR
This paper links the hierarchy problem to WIMP dark matter, proposing that the Higgs mass is dynamically driven to the WIMP scale near a phase transition boundary, with testable implications for experiments.
Contribution
It introduces a novel scenario connecting the Higgs mass, WIMP dark matter, and vacuum stability through a critical boundary mechanism.
Findings
WIMP mass around the weak scale can explain dark matter abundance.
Observation of WIMP mass > 1.2 TeV constrains Higgs mass and new physics scale.
The scenario is testable via direct detection, astrophysics, and colliders.
Abstract
This work proposes a direct link between the hierarchy problem and Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs): we suggest that the small mass of the Higgs boson arises from being dynamically driven to the scale of the WIMP. Such a special electroweak vacuum is singled out by lying close to the critical boundary of a phase transition, as recently explored in a new class of cosmological solutions to the hierarchy problem. They generically predict the Higgs potential to be destabilised just above the weak scale. Intriguingly, the requirement for new physics to achieve this coincides with two independently well-motivated expectations: a split spectrum of light fermions and heavy bosons, as anticipated from naturalness, and the so-called "WIMP miracle". A WIMP with mass around the weak scale not only happens to have the correct thermal relic abundance to be the dark matter (DM), it can…
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Taxonomy
TopicsDark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena · Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies · Computational Physics and Python Applications
