Is Dark Matter Heavy Because of Electroweak Symmetry Breaking? Revisiting Heavy Neutrinos

TL;DR

This paper explores a model where dark matter consists of neutrinos acquiring mass through electroweak symmetry breaking, predicting specific mass ranges and cross sections, with implications for detection and cosmic signals.

Contribution

It proposes a minimal model linking dark matter mass to electroweak symmetry breaking, predicting specific neutrino-based dark matter candidates and their detectability.

Findings

Dark matter candidates have masses around 45 GeV or 90-95 GeV.

Predicted WIMP-neutron cross sections are between 10^{-6} and 10^{-8} pb.

Future experiments will probe the entire parameter space of these models.

Abstract

A simple and well-motivated explanation for the origin of dark matter is that it consists of thermal relic particles that get their mass entirely through electroweak symmetry breaking. The simplest models implementing this possibility predict a dark matter candidate that consists of a mixture of two Dirac neutrinos with opposite isospin, and so has suppressed coupling to the Z. These models predict dark matter masses of m_{DM}~45 GeV or m_{DM}~90-95 GeV and WIMP-neutron spin-independent cross sections \sigma_{WIMP-n}~10^{-6}-10^{-8} pb. Current direct dark matter searches are probing a portion of the parameter space of these models while future experiments sensitive to \sigma_{WIMP-n}~10^{-8} pb will probe the remainder. An enhancement of the galactic halo gamma ray and positron flux coming from annihilations of these particles is also expected across the ~1-100 GeV range. The framework further suggests an environmental explanation of the hierarchy between the weak and Planck scales and of the small value of the cosmological constant relative to the weak scale.