Understand
We evaluate the impact of one-loop electroweak corrections to the spin-independent dark matter (DM) scattering cross-section with nucleons ($\sigma_{\rm SI}$), in models with a so-called blind spot for direct detection, where the leading-order prediction for the relevant DM coupling to the Higgs boson, and therefore $\sigma_{\rm SI}$, are vanishingly small.
- Adopting a simple illustrative scenario in which the DM state results from the mixing of electroweak singlet and doublet fermions, we compute the relevant higher order corrections to the scalar effective operator contributions to $\sigma_{\rm SI}$, stemming from both triangle and box diagrams involving the SM and dark sector fields.
- It is observed that in a significant region of the singlet-doublet model-space, the one-loop corrections ``unblind'' the tree-level blind spots and lead to detectable SI scattering rates at future multi-ton scale liquid Xenon experiments, with $\sigma_{\rm SI}$ reaching values up to a few times $10^{-47} {~\rm cm}^2$, for a weak scale DM with $\mathcal{O}(1)$ Yukawa couplings.
- Furthermore, we find that there always exists a new SI blind spot at the next-to-leading order, which is perturbatively shifted from the leading order one in the singlet-doublet mass parameters.