Evading Direct Dark Matter Detection in Higgs Portal Models

Understand

Many models of Higgs portal Dark Matter (DM) find themselves under pressure from increasingly tight direct detection constraints.

• In the framework of gauge field DM, we study how such bounds can be relaxed while retaining the thermal WIMP paradigm.
• When the hidden sector gauge symmetry is broken via the Higgs mechanism, the hidden sector generally contains unstable states which are lighter than dark matter.
• These states provide DM with an efficient annihilation channel.