Large contributions to dark matter annihilation from three-body final states

The annihilation rate of dark matter particles plays a crucial role in dark matter studies, for it determines their relic density and their indirect detection signal. In this paper, we show that this annihilation rate can receive large additional contributions from three-body final states consisting of a real and a virtual massive particle, such as WW* (Wf \bar f') and t \bar t* (tW\bar b). We consider two specific examples, from the singlet model and the MSSM, and find that, due to the new three-body final state contributions, the prediction for the relic density may decrease by more than a factor two, whereas the present dark matter annihilation rate gets enhanced by up to two orders of magnitude. Some of the implications of these results are briefly discussed.Comment: 6 page

Inverse decays and the relic density of the sterile sneutrino

We consider a weak scale supersymmetric seesaw model where the Higgsino is the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle and the right-handed sneutrino is the dark matter candidate. It is shown that, in this model, inverse decays, which had been previously neglected, may suppress the sneutrino relic density by several orders of magnitude. After including such processes and numerically solving the appropriate Boltzmann equation, we study the dependence of the relic density on the mu parameter, the sneutrino mass, and the neutrino Yukawa coupling. We find that, even though much smaller than in earlier calculations, the sneutrino relic density is still larger than the observed dark matter density.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Singlet-Doublet Dirac Dark Matter

We analyze a simple extension of the Standard Model where the dark matter particle is a Dirac fermion that is mixture of a singlet and an SU(2) doublet. The model contains only four free parameters: the singlet and the doublet masses and two new Yukawa couplings. Direct detection bounds in this model are very strong and require the dark matter particle to be singlet-like. As a result, its relic density has to be obtained via coannihilations with the doublet. We find that the dark matter mass should be below 750 GeV, that the singlet-doublet mass difference cannot exceed 9%, and that direct detection experiments offer the best chance to probe this scenario. Finally, we also show that this model can effectively arise in well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model.Comment: 14 page

Scalar dark matter in the B-L model

The B-L extension of the Standard Model requires the existence of right-handed neutrinos and naturally realizes the seesaw mechanism of neutrino mass generation. We study the possibility of explaining the dark matter in this model with an additional scalar field that is a singlet of the Standard Model but charged under $U(1)_{B-L}$. An advantage of this scenario is that the stability of the dark matter can be guaranteed by appropriately choosing its B-L charge, without the need of an extra ad hoc discrete symmetry. We investigate in detail the dark matter phenomenology of this model. We show that the observed dark matter density can be obtained via gauge or scalar interactions, and that semi-annihilations could play an important role in the latter case. The regions consistent with the dark matter density are determined in each instance and the prospects for detection in future experiments are analyzed. If dark matter annihilations are controlled by the B-L gauge interaction, the mass of the dark matter particle should lie below 5 TeV and its direct detection cross section can be easily probed by XENON1T; if instead they are controlled by scalar interactions, the dark matter mass can be much larger and the detection prospects are less certain. Finally, we show that this scenario can be readily extended to accommodate multiple dark matter particles.Comment: 24 page

The inert doublet model of dark matter revisited

The inert doublet model, a minimal extension of the Standard Model by a second higgs doublet with no direct couplings to quarks or leptons, is one of the simplest scenarios that can explain the dark matter. In this paper, we study in detail the impact of dark matter annihilation into three-body final state on the phenomenology of the inert doublet model. We find that this new annihilation mode dominates, in a relevant portion of the parameter space, over those into two-body final states considered in previous analysis. As a result, the computation of the relic density is modified and the viable regions of the model are displaced. After obtaining the genuine viable regions for different sets of parameters, we compute the direct detection cross section of inert higgs dark matter and find it to be up to two orders of magnitude smaller than what is obtained for two-body final states only. Other implications of these results, including the modification to the decay width of the higgs and to the indirect detection signatures of inert higgs dark matter, are also briefly considered. We demonstrate, therefore, that the annihilation into three-body final state can not be neglected, as it has a important impact on the entire phenomenology of the inert doublet model.Comment: 22 pages, format changed, more detailed discussion in general, figures and references adde

Gamma ray lines: what will they tell us about SUSY?

Neutralino dark matter can be indirectly detected by observing the gamma ray lines from the annihilation processes XX-->gg and XX-->gZ. In this paper we study the implications that the observation of these two lines could have for the determination of the supersymmetric parameter space. Within the minimal supergravity framework, we find that, independently of the dark matter distribution in the Galaxy, such observations by themselves would allow to differentiate between the coannihilation region, the funnel region, and the focus point region. As a result, several restrictions on the msugra parameters can be derived. Within a more general MSSM scenario, we show that the observation of gamma-ray lines might be used to discriminate between a bino-, a wino-, and a higgsino-like neutralino, with important consequences for cosmology and for models of supersymmetry breaking. The detection of the gamma ray lines, therefore, will not only provide an unmistakable signature of dark matter, it will also open a new road toward the determination of supersymmetric parameters.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figure