Direct detection portals for self-interacting dark matter

Dark matter self-interactions can affect the small scale structure of the Universe, reducing the central densities of dwarfs and low surface brightness galaxies in accord with observations. From a particle physics point of view, this points toward the existence of a 1-100 MeV particle in the dark se...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. D, Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology, 2014-02, Vol.89 (3), Article 035009
Main Authors: Kaplinghat, Manoj, Tulin, Sean, Yu, Hai-Bo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bosons
Cosmology
Dark matter
Density
Galaxies
Joining
Photons
Small scale
Universe
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Summary:Dark matter self-interactions can affect the small scale structure of the Universe, reducing the central densities of dwarfs and low surface brightness galaxies in accord with observations. From a particle physics point of view, this points toward the existence of a 1-100 MeV particle in the dark sector that mediates self-interactions. Since mediator particles will generically couple to the Standard Model, direct detection experiments provide sensitive probes of self-interacting dark matter. We consider three minimal mechanisms for coupling the dark and visible sectors: photon kinetic mixing, Z boson mass mixing, and the Higgs portal. Self-interacting dark matter motivates a new benchmark paradigm for direct detection via momentum-dependent interactions, and ton-scale experiments will cover astrophysically motivated parameter regimes that are unconstrained by current limits. Direct detection is a complementary avenue to constrain velocity-dependent self-interactions that evade astrophysical bounds from larger scales, such as those from the bullet cluster.
ISSN:1550-7998
1550-2368
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.89.035009