Journal of High Energy Physics (Apr 2019)

Faint light from dark matter: classifying and constraining dark matter-photon effective operators

  • Bradley J. Kavanagh,
  • Paolo Panci,
  • Robert Ziegler

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP04(2019)089
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2019, no. 4
pp. 1 – 46

Abstract

Read online

Abstract Even if Dark Matter (DM) is neutral under electromagnetism, it can still interact with the Standard Model (SM) via photon exchange from higher-dimensional operators. Here we classify the general effective operators coupling DM to photons, distinguishing between Dirac/Majorana fermion and complex/real scalar DM. We provide model-independent constraints on these operators from direct and indirect detection. We also constrain various DM-lepton operators, which induce DM-photon interactions via RG running or which typically arise in sensible UV-completions. This provides a simple way to quickly assess constraints on any DM model that interacts mainly via photon exchange or couples to SM leptons.

Keywords