On the Validity of the Effective Field Theory for Dark Matter Searches at the LHC, Part II: Complete Analysis for the s-channel

Understand

We generalize in several directions our recent analysis of the limitations to the use of the effective field theory approach to study dark matter at the LHC.

• Firstly, we study the full list of operators connecting fermion DM to quarks and gluons, corresponding to integrating out a heavy mediator in the $s$-channel; secondly, we provide analytical results for the validity of the EFT description for both $\sqrt{s}=8$ {\rm TeV} and $14$ {\rm TeV}; thirdly, we make use of a MonteCarlo event generator approach to assess the validity of our analytical conclusions.
• We apply our results to revisit the current collider bounds on the ultraviolet cut-off scale of the effective field theory and show that these bounds are weakened once the validity conditions of the effective field theory are imposed.