Natural dark matter and light bosons with an alternative left-right symmetry

Abstract

We perform a consistent analysis of the alternative left-right symmetric model emerging from $E_6$ grand unification. We include a large set of theoretical and experimental constraints, with a particular emphasis on dark matter observables and collider signals. We show that the exotic neutrino inherent to this class of models, the scotino, is a viable candidate for dark matter satisfying relic density and direct detection constraints. This has strong implications on the scotino mass restricting it to lie in a narrow window, as well as on the spectrum of Higgs bosons, rendering it predictable, with a few light scalar, pseudoscalar and charged states. Moreover, we also show that the extra charged $W'$ gauge boson can be light, and investigate the most promising signals at the future high-luminosity upgrade of the LHC. Our findings show that the most optimistic cosmologically-favoured scenarios should be observable at $5\sigma$, whilst others could leave visible hints provided the background is under good control at the systematical level.