Dark matter and naturalness

Abstract

Abstract The Standard Model of particle physics is governed by Poincaré symmetry, while all other symmetries, exact or approximate, are essentially dictated by theoretical consistency with the particle spectrum. On the other hand, many models of dark matter exist that rely upon the addition of new added global symmetries in order to stabilize the dark matter particle and/or achieve the correct abundance. In this work we begin a systematic exploration into truly natural models of dark matter, organized by only relativity and quantum mechanics, without the appeal to any additional global symmetries, no fine-tuning, and no small parameters. We begin by reviewing how singlet dark sectors based on spin 0 or spin $$ \frac{1}{2} $$ 1 2 should readily decay, while pure strongly coupled spin 1 models have an overabun-dance problem. This inevitably leads us to construct chiral models with spin $$ \frac{1}{2} $$ 1 2 particles charged under confining spin 1 particles. This leads to stable dark matter candidates that are analogs of baryons, with a confinement scale that can be naturally 𝒪(100)TeV. This leads to the right freeze-out abundance by annihilating into massless unconfined dark fermions. The minimal model involves a dark copy of SU(3) × SU(2) with 1 generation of chiral dark quarks and leptons. The presence of massless dark leptons can potentially give rise to a somewhat large value of ∆N eff during BBN. In order to not upset BBN one may either appeal to a large number of heavy degrees of freedom beyond the Standard Model, or to assume the dark sector has a lower reheat temperature than the visible sector, which is also natural in this framework. This reasoning provides a robust set of dark matter models that are entirely natural. Some are concrete realizations of the nightmare scenario in which dark matter may be very difficult to detect, which may impact future search techniques.