LHC-friendly freeze-in dark matter via Higgs portal

Abstract

It is known that single-field freeze-in dark matter barely leaves footprints in dark matter direct detection and collider experiments. This situation can be altered in two-field context. In this work we propose a two-field freeze-in dark matter model through Higgs portal. The observed dark matter relic abundance is obtained by a decay of scalar mediator thermalized in the early Universe. While there is a lack of direct dark matter signals, the scalar mediator is in the reach of HL-LHC either through vector boson fusion or Mono-Z channel. Within allowed scalar mass window of 10-50 GeV, we use improved cuts to derive both $2\sigma$ exclusion and $5\sigma$ discovery limits, depending on the value of Higgs portal coupling. If verified, this scalar mediator signal allows us to infer the freeze-in dark matter.

Comments: v3: Published version with new materials added