Multi-component scalar dark matter from a $Z_N$ symmetry: a systematic analysis

Understand

The dark matter may consist not of one elementary particle but of different species, each of them contributing a fraction of the observed dark matter density.

• A major theoretical difficulty with this scenario --dubbed multi-component dark matter-- is to explain the stability of these distinct particles.
• Imposing a single $Z_N$ symmetry, which may be a remnant of a spontaneously broken $U(1)$ gauge symmetry, seems to be the simplest way to simultaneously stabilize several dark matter particles.
• In this paper we systematically study scenarios for multi-component dark matter based on various $Z_N$ symmetries ($N\leq 10$) and with different sets of scalar fields charged under it.