Heavy dark matter annihilation from effective field theory

Area of Science:

• Particle Physics
• Cosmology
• Astrophysics

Background:

• Dark matter remains a significant mystery in cosmology, with its particle nature and interactions yet to be fully understood.
• Accurate theoretical predictions are crucial for interpreting experimental searches for dark matter, particularly those looking for annihilation signals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To formulate a precise effective field theory description for SU(2)_{L} triplet fermionic dark matter.
• To accurately calculate the dark matter annihilation cross section into line photons, including key physical effects.
• To provide updated predictions for gamma-ray line signals, thereby improving constraints on dark matter models and future experimental reach.

Main Methods:

• Combining nonrelativistic dark matter effective field theory with soft-collinear effective theory for gauge bosons.
• Incorporating Sommerfeld enhancement to account for long-range interactions.
• Resumming electroweak Sudakov logarithms at next-to-leading logarithmic order for high precision.

Main Results:

• An effective field theory description for SU(2)_{L} triplet fermionic dark matter is established.
• The dark matter annihilation cross section to line photons is calculated with 5% precision.
• More accurate and precise predictions for the gamma-ray line signal from dark matter annihilation are presented.

Conclusions:

• The developed theoretical framework provides a significant improvement in the precision of dark matter annihilation predictions.
• Updated constraints on dark matter properties and the sensitivity of future experiments are derived.
• This work offers a more robust tool for the ongoing search for dark matter through astrophysical signals.