The third-generation-philic WIMP: an EFT analysis

TL;DR

This paper explores dark matter particles that interact mainly with third-generation particles, showing that current experiments haven't ruled out certain possibilities, and future experiments may detect them.

Contribution

The study introduces a new analysis of third-generation-philic dark matter using effective field theory and explores implications for the electroweak hierarchy problem.

Findings

Current direct-detection constraints on third-generation-philic dark matter interactions are much weaker than for flavor-universal couplings.

A well-defined region for fermionic dark matter with mass in the 1–2 TeV range is consistent with observed relic abundance.

Introducing a vector mediator can recover additional parameter space for both fermion and scalar dark matter candidates.

Abstract

We consider fermionic and scalar dark matter (DM) candidates that couple predominantly to third-generation Standard Model fermions, describing their interactions within an effective field theory framework. We show that current direct-detection constraints on these interactions are more than an order of magnitude weaker than those for flavor-universal couplings: effective scales in the few-TeV range remain allowed by existing data, leaving open the possibility of a connection between this type of new physics and a solution to the electroweak hierarchy problem. Imposing the observed relic abundance from thermal freeze-out within the same effective theory, a well-defined region for a fermionic DM candidate with mass in the 1–2 TeV range emerges. Notably, this region will be fully probed by upcoming direct-detection experiments. Finally, we show that additional parameter space for both fermion and scalar cases can be recovered by going beyond the effective theory, through the introduction of a suitable vector mediator enabling resonant DM annihilation.

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