Aspects of WIMP Dark Matter Searches at Colliders and Other Probes

Enrico Morgante

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9783319676050
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319676067
• Topic: Scienze fisiche
• Subtopic: Cosmologia

This thesis covers several theoretical aspects of WIMP (weakly interacting massive particles) dark matter searches, with a particular emphasis on colliders. It mainly focuses on the use of effective field theories as a tool for Large Hadron Collider (LHC) searches, discussing in detail the issue of their validity, and on simplified dark matter models, which are receiving a growing attention from the physics community. It highlights the theoretical consistency of simplified models, which is essential in order to correctly exploit their potential and for them to be a common reference when comparing results from different experiments. This thesis is of interest to researchers (both theorists and experimentalists) in the field of dark matter searches, and offers a comprehensive introduction to dark matter and to WIMP searches for students and non-experts.

Table of contents

• Supervisor’s Foreword
• Abstract
• Preface
• List of Publications
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• 1 Introduction to Dark Matter
• Part I Direct and Indirect WIMP Searches
• 2 Direct Detection of WIMPs
• 3 Indirect Detection
• 4 Focus on AMS-02 Anti-protons Results
• Part II LHC Searches
• 5 Dark Matter Searches at the LHC
• 6 The EFT Approach and Its Validity
• 7 Simplified Models
• 8 The Relic Density Constraint
• 9 A U(1)' Gauge Mediator
• 10 Conclusions
• Appendix A Mono-jet Cross Sections in the EFT Limit
• A.1 Generalities
• A.2 Matrix Elements
• A.3 Cross Sections
• Appendix B Annihilation Cross Section with a Pure Vector/Axial Mediator (as in Chap. 8)
• Appendix C Details of the Annihilation Rate Calculation in the Z' Model
• Appendix D General Formalism for the Calculation of the Relic Density