https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13672-y
Review
The waning of the WIMP: endgame?
1
Dipartimento di Scienze Matematiche e Informatiche, Scienze Fisiche e Scienze della Terra, Universita degli Studi di Messina, Via Ferdinando Stagno d’Alcontres 31, 98166, Messina, Italy
2
INFN Sezione di Catania, Via Santa Sofia 64, 95123, Catania, Italy
3
Departament de Física Quàntica i Astrofísica, Universitat de Barcelona, Martí i Franquès 1, 08028, Barcelona, Spain
4
Astroparticle Physics Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 20771, Greenbelt, MD, USA
5
NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow, Washington, D.C., USA
6
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, 110016, New Delhi, India
7
Max Planck Institut für Kernphysik, Saupfercheckweg 1, 69117, Heidelberg, Germany
8
Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS/IN2P3, IJCLab, 91405, Orsay, France
9
Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, 59078-970, Natal, RN, Brasil
10
International Institute of Physics, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Campus Universitario, Lagoa Nova, 59078-970, Natal, RN, Brazil
11
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607, Hamburg, Germany
12
Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High St, 95060, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
13
Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, Santa Cruz, 1156 High St, 95060, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
14
Millennium Institute for Subatomic Physics at the High-Energy Frontier (SAPHIR) of ANID, Fernández Concha 700, Santiago, Chile
Received:
23
March
2024
Accepted:
29
November
2024
Published online:
6
February
2025
We give a fresh look at the WIMP paradigm by considering updated limits and prospects for direct and indirect dark matter detection and covering realistic dark matter models, beyond the so-called simplified models, which have been the target of experimental scrutiny. In particular, we investigate dark matter scenarios featuring dwindled direct detection signals, due to loop or momentum suppression. Therefore, this review extends previous reviews in different aspects and motivates the search for WIMP dark matter in light of the present and near-future detectors.
This article is a revised version of https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-5662-y
Change summary Major revision, updated and expanded.
Change details This is a completely new edition of the review published in Eur. Phys. J. C78 (2018), 203, with two additional authors, David Cabo Almeida and Jacinto Paulo Neto, and presents no overlap with the original edition. The present edition aims to provide an entirely fresh view of the status of DM models and accounts for the updates in the relevant Dark Matter (DM) search experiments. Limits by XENON1T and LUX, presented in Eur. Phys. J. C78 (2018), 203, have been superseded by the ones from XENONnT and LZ. For what Indirect Detection (ID) is concerned we have considered the updated statistics of the FERMI experiment and shown, for the first-time prospects for the CTA experiment. With respect to the previous edition the general discussion about DM relic density and Direct Detection have been extended. In the former cases we have provided an explicit description of the coannihilation and multi-component DM scenarios. For what DD is concerned, a description of the more general EFT formalisms, beyond the conventional distinction in Spin Independent (SI) and Spin Dependent (SD) interactions. The most relevant difference between the two editions relies in the selection of the theoretical models. While Eur. Phys. J. C78 (2018), 203 mostly concentrated on the particle frameworks dubbed ``portals'', this manuscript puts instead the emphasis on more refined and realistic particle physics models - considering, e.g., vector DM emerging from new gauge groups and models with spin-1 mediators with masses dynamically generated by the spontaneous breaking of a gauge symmetry. The choice of the models reflects the trend, mostly inspired by LHC working groups, of considering more realistic models offering a richer variety of collider signals, with respect to the simplified models considered so far. Another distinctive aspect of the present work is the emphasis on models in which sizeable contributions to the DM scattering cross-section over nucleons arise at one loop for which detailed expressions are provided. Models with loop-induced DD cross-section are among the most interesting benchmarks which can be probed by near future experiments.
© The Author(s) 2025
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