arXiv subjects

Laura Lopez-Honorez

Publications and source records attributed to Laura Lopez-Honorez.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Singlet-Doublet Dark Matter Freeze-in: LHC displaced signatures versus cosmology

We study the Singlet-Doublet dark matter model in the regime of feeble couplings, where the dark matter abundance is obtained via the freeze-in mechanism. As a consequence of the small couplings, the heavier particles in the model are long-lived with decay length at typical scales of collider experiments. We analyse the collider signatures of the model, characterised by displaced $h$ and $Z$ bosons plus missing momentum, employing current LHC searches for displaced vertices and missing energy to significantly constrain the parameter space of the model. We also take into account the cosmological bounds relevant for our light dark matter candidate arising from Lyman-$α$ forest constraints. Our analysis emphasises the interplay between displaced signatures at the LHC and cosmology for dark matter candidates whose relic abundance is obtained through the freeze-in mechanism.

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arXiv2018

A fresh look into the interacting dark matter scenario

The elastic scattering between dark matter particles and radiation represents an attractive possibility to solve a number of discrepancies between observations and standard cold dark matter predictions, as the induced collisional damping would imply a suppression of small-scale structures. We consider this scenario and confront it with measurements of the ionization history of the Universe at several redshifts and with recent estimates of the counts of Milky Way satellite galaxies. We derive a conservative upper bound on the dark matter-photon elastic scattering cross section of $σ_{γ\rm{DM}} < 8 \times 10^{-10} \, σ_T \, \left(m_{\rm DM}/{\rm GeV}\right)$ at $95\%$~CL, about one order of magnitude tighter than previous {constraints from satellite number counts}. Due to the strong degeneracies with astrophysical parameters, the bound on the dark matter-photon scattering cross section derived here is driven by the estimate of the number of Milky Way satellite galaxies. Finally, we also argue that future 21~cm probes could help in disentangling among possible non-cold dark matter candidates, such as interacting and warm dark matter scenarios. Let us emphasize that bounds of similar magnitude to the ones obtained here could be also derived for models with dark matter-neutrino interactions and would be as constraining as the tightest limits on such scenarios.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Warm dark matter and the ionization history of the Universe

In warm dark matter scenarios structure formation is suppressed on small scales with respect to the cold dark matter case, reducing the number of low-mass halos and the fraction of ionized gas at high redshifts and thus, delaying reionization. This has an impact on the ionization history of the Universe and measurements of the optical depth to reionization, of the evolution of the global fraction of ionized gas and of the thermal history of the intergalactic medium, can be used to set constraints on the mass of the dark matter particle. However, the suppression of the fraction of ionized medium in these scenarios can be partly compensated by varying other parameters, as the ionization efficiency or the minimum mass for which halos can host star-forming galaxies. Here we use different data sets regarding the ionization and thermal histories of the Universe and, taking into account the degeneracies from several astrophysical parameters, we obtain a lower bound on the mass of thermal warm dark matter candidates of $m_X > 1.3$ keV, or $m_s > 5.5$ keV for the case of sterile neutrinos non-resonantly produced in the early Universe, both at 90\% confidence level.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

On Minimal Dark Matter coupled to the Higgs

We provide a unified presentation of extensions of the Minimal Dark Matter framework in which new fermionic electroweak multiplets are coupled to each other via the Standard Model Higgs doublet. We study systematically the generic features of all the possibilities, starting with a singlet and two doublets (akin to Bino-Higgsino dark matter) up to a Majorana quintuplet coupled to two Weyl quadruplets. We pay special attention to this last case, since it has not yet been discussed in the literature. We estimate the parameter space for viable dark matter candidates. This includes an estimate for the mass of a quasi-pure quadruplet dark matter candidate taking into account the Sommerfeld effect. We also argue how the coupling to the Higgs can bring the Minimal Dark Matter scenario within the reach of present and future direct detection experiments.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

The 21 cm signal and the interplay between dark matter annihilations and astrophysical processes

Future dedicated radio interferometers, including HERA and SKA, are very promising tools that aim to study the epoch of reionization and beyond via measurements of the 21 cm signal from neutral hydrogen. Dark matter (DM) annihilations into charged particles change the thermal history of the Universe and, as a consequence, affect the 21 cm signal. Accurately predicting the effect of DM strongly relies on the modeling of annihilations inside halos. In this work, we use up-to-date computations of the energy deposition rates by the products from DM annihilations, a proper treatment of the contribution from DM annihilations in halos, as well as values of the annihilation cross section allowed by the most recent cosmological measurements from the Planck satellite. Given current uncertainties on the description of the astrophysical processes driving the epochs of reionization, X-ray heating and Lyman-$α$ pumping, we find that disentangling DM signatures from purely astrophysical effects, related to early-time star formation processes or late-time galaxy X-ray emissions, will be a challenging task. We conclude that only annihilations of DM particles with masses of $\sim100$ MeV, could leave an unambiguous imprint on the 21 cm signal and, in particular, on the 21 cm power spectrum. This is in contrast to previous, more optimistic results in the literature, which have claimed that strong signatures might also be present even for much higher DM masses. Additional measurements of the 21 cm signal at different cosmic epochs will be crucial in order to break the strong parameter degeneracies between DM annihilations and astrophysical effects and undoubtedly single out a DM imprint for masses different from $\sim100$ MeV.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Primordial Power Spectrum features and $f_{NL}$ constraints

The simplest models of inflation predict small non-gaussianities and a featureless power spectrum. However, there exist a large number of well-motivated theoretical scenarios in which large non-gaussianties could be generated. In general, in these scenarios the primordial power spectrum will deviate from its standard power law shape. We study, in a model-independent manner, the constraints from future large scale structure surveys on the local non-gaussianity parameter $f_{\rm NL}$ when the standard power law assumption for the primordial power spectrum is relaxed. If the analyses are restricted to the large scale-dependent bias induced in the linear matter power spectrum by non-gaussianites, the errors on the $f_{\rm NL}$ parameter could be increased by $60\%$ when exploiting data from the future DESI survey, if dealing with only one possible dark matter tracer. In the same context, a nontrivial bias $|δf_{\rm NL}| \sim 2.5$ could be induced if future data are fitted to the wrong primordial power spectrum. Combining all the possible DESI objects slightly ameliorates the problem, as the forecasted errors on $f_{\rm NL}$ would be degraded by $40\%$ when relaxing the assumptions concerning the primordial power spectrum shape. Also the shift on the non-gaussianity parameter is reduced in this case, $|δf_{\rm NL}| \sim 1.6$. The addition of Cosmic Microwave Background priors ensure robust future $f_{\rm NL}$ bounds, as the forecasted errors obtained including these measurements are almost independent on the primordial power spectrum features, and $|δf_{\rm NL}| \sim 0.2$, close to the standard single-field slow-roll paradigm prediction.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Dark Matter Constraints on Composite Higgs Models

In composite Higgs models the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone Boson (pNGB) nature of the Higgs field is an interesting alternative for explaning the smallness of the electroweak scale with respect to the beyond the Standard Model scale. In non-minimal models additional pNGB states are present and can be a Dark Matter (DM) candidate, if there is an approximate symmetry suppressing their decay. Here we assume that the low energy effective theory (for scales much below the compositeness scale) corresponds to the Standard Model with a pNGB Higgs doublet and a pNGB DM multiplet. We derive general effective DM Lagrangians for several possible DM representations (under the SM gauge group), including the singlet, doublet and triplet cases. Within this framework we discuss how the DM observables (relic abundance, direct and indirect detection) constrain the dimension-6 operators induced by the strong sector assuming that DM behaves as a Weakly Interacting Particle (WIMP) and that the relic abundance is settled through the freeze-out mechanism. We also apply our general results to two specific cosets: $SO(6)/SO(5)$ and $SO(6)/SO(4) \times SO(2)$, which contain a singlet and doublet DM candidate, respectively. In particular we show that if compositeness is a solution to the little hierarchy problem, representations larger than the triplet are strongly disfavored. Furthermore, we find that composite models can have viable DM candidates with much smaller direct detection cross-sections than their non-composite counterparts, making DM detection much more challenging.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Current constraints on early and stressed dark energy models and future 21 cm perspectives

Despite the great progress of current cosmological measurements, the nature of the dominant component of the universe, coined dark energy, is still an open question. Early Dark Energy is a possible candidate which may also alleviate some fine tuning issues of the standard paradigm. Using the latest available cosmological data, we find that the 95% CL upper bound on the early dark energy density parameter is $Ω_{\textrm{eDE}}$. On the other hand, the dark energy component may be a stressed and inhomogeneous fluid. If this is the case, the effective sound speed and the viscosity parameters are unconstrained by current data. Future omniscope-like $21$cm surveys, combined with present CMB data, could be able to distinguish between standard quintessence scenarios from other possible models with $2σ$ significance, assuming a non-negligible early dark energy contribution. The precision achieved on the $Ω_{\textrm{eDE}}$ parameter from these $21$ cm probes could be below $\mathcal{O} (10\%)$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Bremsstrahlung and Gamma Ray Lines in 3 Scenarios of Dark Matter Annihilation

Gamma ray spectral features are of interest for indirect searches of dark matter (DM). Following Barger et al, we consider 3 simple scenarios of DM that annihilates into Standard Model (SM) fermion pairs. Scenario 1 is a Majorana DM candidate coupled to a charged scalar, scenario 2 is a Majorana DM coupled to a charged gauge boson and scenario 3 is a real scalar DM coupled a charged vector-like fermion. As shown by Barger et al, these 3 scenarios share precisely the same internal Bremsstrahlung spectral signature into gamma rays. Their phenomenology is however distinct. In particular for annihilation into light SM fermions, in the chiral limit, the 2-body annihilation cross section is p-wave suppressed for the Majorana candidates while it is d-wave suppressed for the real scalar. In the present work we study the annihilation into 2 gammas, showing that these three scenarios have distinct, and so potentially distinguishable, spectral signatures into gamma rays. In the case of the real scalar candidate we provide a new calculation of the amplitude for annihilation into 2 gammas.

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arXiv2014

Constraining dark matter late-time energy injection: decays and p-wave annihilations

We use the latest cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations to provide updated constraints on the dark matter lifetime as well as on p-wave suppressed annihilation cross sections in the 1 MeV to 1 TeV mass range. In contrast to scenarios with an s-wave dominated annihilation cross section, which mainly affect the CMB close to the last scattering surface, signatures associated with these scenarios essentially appear at low redshifts ($z \lesssim 50$) when structure began to form, and thus manifest at lower multipoles in the CMB power spectrum. We use data from Planck, WMAP9, SPT and ACT, as well as Lyman-$α$ measurements of the matter temperature at $z \sim 4$ to set a 95 % confidence level lower bound on the dark matter lifetime of $\sim 4 \times 10^{25}$ s for $m_χ= 100$ MeV. This bound becomes lower by an order of magnitude at $m_χ= 1$ TeV due to inefficient energy deposition into the intergalactic medium. We also show that structure formation can enhance the effect of p--wave suppressed annihilation cross sections by many orders of magnitude with respect to the background cosmological rate, although even with this enhancement, CMB constraints are not yet strong enough to reach the thermal relic value of the cross section.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

Scalar Dark Matter Models with Significant Internal Bremsstrahlung

There has been interest recently on particle physics models that may give rise to sharp gamma ray spectral features from dark matter annihilation. Because dark matter is supposed to be electrically neutral, it is challenging to build weakly interacting massive particle models that may accommodate both a large cross section into gamma rays at, say, the Galactic center, and the right dark matter abundance. In this work, we consider the gamma ray signatures of a class of scalar dark matter models that interact with Standard Model dominantly through heavy vector-like fermions (the vector-like portal). We focus on a real scalar singlet S annihilating into lepton-antilepton pairs. Because this two-body final-state annihilation channel is d-wave suppressed in the chiral limit, we show that virtual internal bremsstrahlung emission of a gamma ray gives a large correction, both today and at the time of freeze-out. For the sake of comparison, we confront this scenario to the familiar case of a Majorana singlet annihilating into light lepton-antilepton pairs, and show that the virtual internal bremsstrahlung signal may be enhanced by a factor of (up to) two orders of magnitude. We discuss the scope and possible generalizations of the model.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Constraints on dark matter annihilation from CMB observations before Planck

We compute the bounds on the dark matter (DM) annihilation cross section using the most recent Cosmic Microwave Background measurements from WMAP9, SPT'11 and ACT'10. We consider DM with mass in the MeV-TeV range annihilating 100% into either an e+e- or a mu+mu- pair. We consider a realistic energy deposition model, which includes the dependence on the redshift, DM mass and annihilation channel. We exclude the canonical thermal relic abundance cross section ( = 3 x 10^{-26} cm^3 s^{-1}) for DM masses below 30 GeV and 15 GeV for the e+e- and mu+mu- channels, respectively. A priori, DM annihilating in halos could also modify the reionization history of the Universe at late times. We implement a realistic halo model taken from results of state-of-the-art N-body simulations and consider a mixed reionization mechanism, consisting on reionization from DM as well as from first stars. We find that the constraints on DM annihilation remain unchanged, even when large uncertainties on the halo model parameters are considered.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

New constraints on Coupled Dark Energy from Planck

We present new constraints on coupled dark energy from the recent measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies from the Planck satellite mission. We found that a coupled dark energy model is fully compatible with the Planck measurements, deriving a weak bound on the dark matter-dark energy coupling parameter ξ=-0.49^{+0.19}_{-0.31} at 68% c.l.. Moreover if Planck data are fitted to a coupled dark energy scenario, the constraint on the Hubble constant is relaxed to H_0=72.1^{+3.2}_{-2.3} km/s/Mpc, solving the tension with the Hubble Space Telescope value. We show that a combined Planck+HST analysis provides significant evidence for coupled dark energy finding a non-zero value for the coupling parameter ξ, with -0.90< ξ<-0.22 at 95% c.l.. We also consider the combined constraints from the Planck data plus the BAO measurements of the 6dF Galaxy Survey, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Baron Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

Dark matter within the minimal flavour violation ansatz

Minimal Flavour Violation hypothesis can provide an attractive framework for Dark Matter (DM). We consider scalar DM candidates carrying flavour quantum numbers and whose representation under the flavour group guarantees DM stability. They interact with the Standard Model fields through Higgs portal at renormalisable level and also to quarks through dimension-6 operators. We provide a systematic analysis of the viable parameter space for the DM fields, which are triplet of the flavour group, considering several DM-quark interactions. In this framework, we analyse in which cases the viable parameter space differs from Higgs portal models thanks to the underlying flavour structure. In contrast to minimal Higgs portal scenarios, we find that light DM in the GeV mass range as well as heavier candidates above Higgs resonance could be allowed by colliders, direct and indirect DM detection searches as well as flavour constraints. The large mass regime above the top mass could even be beyond the reach of future experiments such as Xenon 1T.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Status of the Inert Doublet Model and the Role of multileptons at the LHC

A possible feature of the inert doublet model (IDM) is to provide a dark matter candidate together with an alteration of both direct and indirect collider constraints that allow for a heavy Higgs boson. We study the IDM in light of recent results from Higgs searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in combination with dark matter direct detection limits from the XENON experiment. We ask under what conditions the IDM can still accommodate a heavy Higgs boson. We find that IDM scenarios with a Higgs boson in the mass range 160-600 GeV are ruled out only when all experimental constraints are combined. For models explaining only a fraction of the dark matter the limits are weakened, and IDMs with a heavy Higgs are allowed. We discuss the prospects for future detection of such IDM scenarios in the four-lepton plus missing energy channel at the LHC. This signal can show up in the first year of running at \sqrt{s} = 14 TeV, and we present detector-level studies for a few benchmark models.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Background reionization history from omniscopes

The measurements of the 21-cm brightness temperature fluctuations from the neutral hydrogen at the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) should inaugurate the next generation of cosmological observables. In this respect, many works have concentrated on the disambiguation of the cosmological signals from the dominant reionization foregrounds. However, even after perfect foregrounds removal, our ignorance on the background reionization history can significantly affect the cosmological parameter estimation. In particular, the interdependence between the hydrogen ionized fraction, the baryon density and the optical depth to the redshift of observation induce nontrivial degeneracies between the cosmological parameters that have not been considered so far. Using a simple, but consistent reionization model, we revisit their expected constraints for a futuristic giant 21-cm omniscope by using for the first time Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods on multiredshift full sky simulated data. Our results agree well with the usual Fisher matrix analysis on the three-dimensional flat sky power spectrum but only when the above-mentioned degeneracies are kept under control. In the opposite situation, Fisher results can be inaccurate. We show that these conditions can be fulfilled by combining cosmic microwave background measurements with multiple observation redshifts probing the beginning of EoR. This allows a precise reconstruction of the total optical depth, reionization duration and maximal spin temperature. Finally, we discuss the robustness of these results in presence of unresolved ionizing sources. Although most of the standard cosmological parameters remain weakly affected, we find a significant degradation of the background reionization parameter estimation in presence of nuisance ionizing sources.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Higgs portal, fermionic dark matter, and a Standard Model like Higgs at 125 GeV

We show that fermionic dark matter (DM) which communicates with the Standard Model (SM) via the Higgs portal is a viable scenario, even if a SM-like Higgs is found at around 125 GeV. Using effective field theory we show that for DM with a mass in the range from about 60 GeV to 2 TeV the Higgs portal needs to be parity violating in order to be in agreement with direct detection searches. For parity conserving interactions we identify two distinct options that remain viable: a resonant Higgs portal, and an indirect Higgs portal. We illustrate both possibilities using a simple renormalizable toy model.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

A new viable region of the inert doublet model

The inert doublet model, a minimal extension of the Standard Model by a second Higgs doublet, is one of the simplest and most attractive scenarios that can explain the dark matter. In this paper, we demonstrate the existence of a new viable region of the inert doublet model featuring dark matter masses between Mw and about 160 GeV. Along this previously overlooked region of the parameter space, the correct relic density is obtained thanks to cancellations between different diagrams contributing to dark matter annihilation into gauge bosons (W+W- and ZZ). First, we explain how these cancellations come about and show several examples illustrating the effect of the parameters of the model on the cancellations themselves and on the predicted relic density. Then, we perform a full scan of the new viable region and analyze it in detail by projecting it onto several two-dimensional planes. Finally, the prospects for the direct and the indirect detection of inert Higgs dark matter within this new viable region are studied. We find that present direct detection bounds already rule out a fraction of the new parameter space and that future direct detection experiments, such as Xenon100, will easily probe the remaining part in its entirety.

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