Distinguishing Higgs portal and neutralino dark matter via vector boson fusion

TL;DR

This study explores how vector boson fusion at the LHC can differentiate between Higgs portal and neutralino dark matter models using distinctive jet and energy features, achieving over 5σ discrimination.

Contribution

It demonstrates the feasibility of distinguishing dark matter scenarios at colliders by analyzing VBF jet kinematics and applying statistical tests, a novel approach in this context.

Findings

Higgs portal and neutralino DM produce different jet transverse momentum distributions.

Kinematic variables Δη and Δφ effectively discriminate between the two DM scenarios.

Signals can be distinguished with a confidence level exceeding 5σ using the proposed analysis.

Abstract

Understanding the nature of dark matter (DM) is a fundamental challenge in particle physics. In this paper, we investigate the potential of vector boson fusion (VBF) processes at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to demonstrate, as a proof of principle, the feasibility of distinguishing between different dark matter scenarios, focusing on Higgs portal DM (HPDM) and neutralino DM in the $2j + \not\!\! E_T$ final state and exploiting the distinctive kinematic features of the VBF jets and the missing transverse energy. Our study reveals that the polarization of weak bosons in VBF plays a crucial role in shaping the transverse momentum distributions of the tagged jets, with the jets being less energetic in the transverse direction for the Higgs portal scenario compared to the neutralino scenario. In addition, the kinematic variables $\Delta\eta$ and $\Delta\phi$ exhibit characteristic differences between the Higgs portal and neutralino DM signals, providing significant discriminating power between these scenarios. We further apply a Kolmogorov--Smirnov test using linear discriminant analysis to quantify the distinguishability of the signals and find that the Higgs portal signals can be differentiated from neutralino DM signals with a C.L. exceeding $5\sigma$, thereby establishing the viability of collider-based discrimination between dark matter models.