Collisional Dark Matter and Scalar Phantoms

The identity of dark matter is a question of central importance in both astrophysics and particle physics. In the past, the leading particle candidates were cold and collisionless, and typically predicted missing energy signals at particle colliders. However, recent progress has greatly expanded the list of well-motivated candidates and the possible signatures of dark matter. This review begins with a brief summary of the standard model of particle physics and its outstanding...

Two theoretically well-motivated gauge extensions of the standard model are $SU(3)_C \times SU(3)_L \times SU(3)_R$ and $SU(3)_q \times SU(3)_L \times SU(3)_l \times SU(3)_R$, where $SU(3)_q$ is the same as $SU(3)_C$ and $SU(3)_l$ is its color leptonic counterpart. Each as three variations, according to how $SU(3)_R$ is broken. It is shown here for the first time that a built-in dark $U(1)_D$ gauge symmetry exists in all six versions, and may be broken to discrete $Z_2$ dark ...

The standard model of particle physics is marvelously successful. However, it is obviously not a complete or final theory. I shall argue here that the structure of the standard model gives some quite concrete, compelling hints regarding what lies beyond. Taking these hints seriously, one is led to predict the existence of new types of very weakly interacting matter, stable on cosmological time scales and produced with cosmologically interesting densities--that is, ``dark matt...

We study production of self-interacting dark matter (DM) during an early matter-dominated phase. As a benchmark scenario, we consider a model where the DM consists of singlet scalar particles coupled to the visible Standard Model (SM) sector via the Higgs portal. We consider scenarios where the initial DM abundance is set by either the usual thermal freeze-out or an alternative freeze-in mechanism, where DM was never in thermal equilibrium with the SM sector. For the first ti...

Self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) with a light mediator is a promising scenario to alleviate the small-scale problems of the cold dark matter paradigm while being consistent with the latter at large scales, as suggested by astrophysical observations. This, however, leads to an under-abundant SIDM relic due to large annihilation rates into mediator particles, often requiring an extension of the simplest thermal or non-thermal relic generation mechanism. In this work, we cons...

In this work we study a classically scale-invariant extension of the Standard Model in which the dark matter and electroweak scales are generated through the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism. The extra $SU(3)_X$ gauge factor gets completely broken by the vacuum expectation values of two scalar triplets. Out of the eight resulting massive vector bosons the three lightest are stable due to an intrinsic $Z_2\times Z_2'$ discrete symmetry and can constitute dark matter candidates. We a...

We consider a fermionic dark matter candidate interacting via a scalar mediator coupled with the Standard Model through a Higgs portal. We consider general setting including both scalar and pseudoscalar interactions between the scalar and fermion, and illustrate the relevant features for dark matter abundance, direct search limits and collider constraints. The case where dark matter has a self-interaction strength $\left\langle \sigma_V \right\rangle/m_\psi \sim 0.1-1 \,\math...

Can dark matter be stabilized by charge conservation, just as the electron is in the standard model? We examine the possibility that dark matter is hidden, that is, neutral under all standard model gauge interactions, but charged under an exact U(1) gauge symmetry of the hidden sector. Such candidates are predicted in WIMPless models, supersymmetric models in which hidden dark matter has the desired thermal relic density for a wide range of masses. Hidden charged dark matter ...

We consider the cosmology and phenomenology of a dark photon portal to a simple dark sector consisting of a single, light, fermionic dark matter particle species with mass in the MeV range. We entertain three possible kinetic mixing structures of a new Abelian gauge group U(1)$_{\text{dark}}$ with the visible sector through U(1)$_{\text{e.m.}}$, U(1)$_{\text{Y}}$ and T[SU(2)$_{\text{L}}$]. We assume the dark photon to be massive and around the MeV scale, thus close to the mas...

In this paper, we explore a dark sector scenario with a gauged $SU(2)_R$ and a global $U(1)_X \times \mathbb{Z}_2$, where the continuous symmetries are spontaneously broken to a global $U(1)_D$. We show that in various regions of the parameter space we can have two, or three dark matter candidates, where these dark matter particles are either a Dirac fermion, a dark gauge boson, or a complex scalar. The phenomenological implications of this scenario are vast and interesting. ...