2009/09/11 by Graham D. Kribs, Tuhin S. Roy, John Terning +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.81.095001
published as Phys.Rev.D81:095001,2010 · 32 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2009/09/11 · openalex publication_date 2010/05/03 · arxiv updated 2010/05/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We propose a new dark matter candidate, ``quirky dark matter,'' that is a scalar baryonic bound state of a new non-Abelian force that becomes strong below the electroweak scale. The bound state is made of chiral quirks: new fermions that transform under both the new strong force as well as in a chiral representation of the electroweak group, acquiring mass from the Higgs mechanism. Electric charge neutrality of the lightest baryon requires approximately degenerate quirk masses which also causes the charge radius of the bound state to be negligible. The abundance is determined by an asymmetry that is linked to the baryon and lepton numbers of the universe through electroweak sphalerons. Dark matter elastic scattering with nuclei proceeds through Higgs exchange as well as an electromagnetic polarizability operator which is just now being tested in direct detection experiments. A novel method to search for quirky dark matter is to look for a gamma-ray ``dark line'' spectroscopic feature in galaxy clusters that result from the quirky Lyman-alpha or quirky hyperfine transitions. Colliders are expected to dominantly produce quirky mesons, not quirky baryons, consequently large missing energy is not the primary collider signal of the physics associated with quirky dark matter.