Exploring Dark Matter Interactions Through Electroweak Portals

Recent research has explored the interactions between a dark quantum chromodynamics (QCD) sector and the Standard Model (SM) through electroweak portals. This study, titled "Phenomenology of Electroweak Portal Dark Showers: High Energy Direct Probes and Low Energy Complementarity," was authored by Hsin-Chia Cheng, Xu-Hui Jiang, and Lingfeng Li and is available on arXiv (arXiv:2408.13304).

The authors investigate how SM bosons, such as the $Z$ and Higgs bosons, can decay into dark quarks, leading to the production of dark showers. These showers are characterized by the presence of long-lived particles (LLPs), specifically light dark mesons, which have macroscopic decay lengths when they revert to SM states.

A significant focus of the research is on dark shower events at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where the most notable signal is the displaced decay of GeV-scale dark pions. The authors have recast current limits on dark shower signals from public LHC data in a model-independent manner and projected future limits during the high-luminosity phase of the LHC, as well as from proposed auxiliary detectors.

Additionally, the study examines flavor-changing neutral current (FCNC) $B$ decays into dark pions, providing both current and projected constraints at the LHC and other facilities. The findings indicate that the collider's reach has significant potential to explore parameter spaces that are not constrained by electroweak precision tests. This underscores the importance of dedicated search strategies and facilities for LLPs.

The implications of this research could enhance our understanding of dark matter interactions and the fundamental forces at play in the universe. The full paper can be accessed here.