The Diphoton and Diboson Excesses in a Left-Right Symmetric Theory of Dark Matter

We explore the possibility that the recently reported diphoton excess at ATLAS and CMS can be accommodated within a minimal extension of a left-right symmetric model. Our setup is able to simultaneously explain the Run 2 diphoton and Run 1 diboson excesses, while providing a standard thermal freeze-out of weak-scale dark matter. In this scenario, the 750 GeV neutral right-handed Higgs triplet is responsible for the diphoton excess. Interactions of this state with the neutral and charged components of dark matter multiplets provide the dominant mechanisms for production and decay. A striking signature of this model is the additional presence of missing energy in the diphoton channel.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figure

Inelastic Dark Matter at the LHC Lifetime Frontier: ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, CODEX-b, FASER, and MATHUSLA

Visible signals from the decays of light long-lived hidden sector particles have been extensively searched for at beam dump, fixed-target, and collider experiments. If such hidden sectors couple to the Standard Model through mediators heavier than $\sim 10$ GeV, their production at low-energy accelerators is kinematically suppressed, leaving open significant pockets of viable parameter space. We investigate this scenario in models of inelastic dark matter, which give rise to visible signals at various existing and proposed LHC experiments, such as ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, CODEX-b, FASER, and MATHUSLA. These experiments can leverage the large center of mass energy of the LHC to produce GeV-scale dark matter from the decays of dark photons in the cosmologically motivated mass range of $\sim 1-100$ GeV. We also provide a detailed calculation of the radiative dark matter-nucleon/electron elastic scattering cross section, which is relevant for estimating rates at direct detection experiments.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figure

Mono-Higgs Detection of Dark Matter at the LHC

Motivated by the recent discovery of the Higgs boson, we investigate the possibility that a missing energy plus Higgs final state is the dominant signal channel for dark matter at the LHC. We consider examples of higher-dimension operators where a Higgs and dark matter pair are produced through an off-shell Z or photon, finding potential sensitivity at the LHC to cutoff scales of around a few hundred GeV. We generalize this production mechanism to a simplified model by introducing a Z' as well as a second Higgs doublet, where the pseudoscalar couples to dark matter. Resonant production of the Z' which decays to a Higgs plus invisible particles gives rise to a potential mono-Higgs signal. This may be observable at the 14 TeV LHC at low tan beta and when the Z' mass is roughly in the range 600 GeV to 1.3 TeV.Comment: 11 page

Dark Matter Complementarity and the Z′^\prime Portal

Z' gauge bosons arise in many particle physics models as mediators between the dark and visible sectors. We exploit dark matter complementarity and derive stringent and robust collider, direct and indirect constraints, as well as limits from the muon magnetic moment. We rule out almost the entire region of the parameter space that yields the right dark matter thermal relic abundance, using a generic parametrization of the Z'-fermion couplings normalized to the Standard Model Z-fermion couplings for dark matter masses in the 8 GeV-5 TeV range. We conclude that mediators lighter than 2.1 TeV are excluded regardless of the DM mass, and that depending on the Z'-fermion coupling strength much heavier masses are needed to reproduce the DM thermal relic abundance while avoiding existing limits.Comment: 19 Pages, 9 Figures. To appear in PR