School of Physics - Theses

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Author: Sanderson, Isaac William × End date: 2021 × Start date: 2021 × Subject: Particle Physics ×

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    Exploring dark matter interactions
    Sanderson, Isaac William ( 2021)
    Understanding Dark Matter (DM) is one of the foremost goals of modern day particle physics. This thesis is focused on interactions between DM and visible matter. We examine the phenomenology that arises when existing frameworks are extended to make them theoretically consistent, and explore novel means of detection. The first chapter summarises current DM literature and experimental searches, as well as the motivation for pursuing a gauge invariant description of the interactions between the dark and visible sectors. The second chapter considers a gauge invariant portal between the dark and visible sectors, and how the phenomenology of a self consistent model described in a gauge invariant framework differs from the simplified models previously considered in the literature. We consider features of the direct detection signals characteristic of such a gauge invariant model, as well as constraints on these models arising from electroweak precision data, stability of the scalar potential, and DM relic density production. In chapter 3, we consider models in which the tree level contributions to nuclear recoil direct detection experiments are strongly suppressed. In this case, the leading order contributions arise at loop level. We investigate the size of these contributions for both the gauge invariant model presented in the previous chapter, as well as an inelastic DM model. In the fourth chapter we consider the capture of DM particles in the Sun, and their subsequent annihilation to other dark sector particles. The decay of these dark annihilation products, outside the Sun, leads to a flux of gamma rays that we compare with recent solar gamma ray measurements. We analyse this scenario in a model independent way, demonstrating excellent sensitivity to both spin-dependent and spin-independent scattering. We also determine constraints in the context of a self consistent model in which both the scattering and annihilation processes involve dark photons.