Collider and direct detection as key probes of asymmetric dark matter: Signals from a compressed Inert Higgs doublet
Abstract
The cosmic imbalance of particles over antiparticles may be inherited by the dark matter in a certain class of asymmetric dark matter models. In this article, we thoroughly investigate the signatures of the minimal realization of this idea. In this model a new (stable) inert Higgs, H', plays the role of the mediator that facilitates the asymmetry transfer from the visible to the dark sector. It also constitutes a small dark matter sub-component, while the dominant component stems from a singlet scalar asymmetry. A combination of phenomenological and cosmological constraints requires this new inert Higgs doublet to be quite light 46 GeV<mH'< 580 GeV and its spectrum rather compressed, ΔM = mH±−mH0 ≲ 1 GeV and δm = mA0−mH0≲ 5 MeV. Therefore its charged component can be relatively long-lived on collider length-scales. By recasting searches for compressed Higgsinos at the LHC, we derive new limits on this particle and show that, while at present most of the parameter space for this state is still unconstrained, large and key regions of parameter space will be tested at the HL-LHC by a combination of searches for disappearing charged tracks and displaced soft tracks. Quite remarkably, the lifetime of the charged component of the doublet can be correlated with the dark matter interaction rate at direct detection experiments and we show that the next generation of direct detection experiments has a unique sensitivity to the parameter space in the model. The fact that a small neutral mass splitting is a prediction of the asymmetric setup makes it an interesting candidate to account for the high energy nuclear recoil event recently reported by the LZ experiment. More generally, our detailed phenomenological study holds for any dark matter model involving an inert Higgs doublet with mass below 580 GeV.
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BibTeX
@misc{cerdeno2026collider,
title = {{Collider and direct detection as key probes of asymmetric dark matter: Signals from a compressed Inert Higgs doublet}},
author = {David Cerdeño and Miguel Escudero and Pietro Ghedini and Guilherme Guedes and Thomas Hambye and Abel Muñoz-Navarro and Elena Pressendo},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.14178},
eprint = {2610.14178},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14178},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Collider and direct detection as key probes of asymmetric dark matter: Signals from a compressed Inert Higgs doublet
AU - David Cerdeño
AU - Miguel Escudero
AU - Pietro Ghedini
AU - Guilherme Guedes
AU - Thomas Hambye
AU - Abel Muñoz-Navarro
AU - Elena Pressendo
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.14178
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14178
AB - The cosmic imbalance of particles over antiparticles may be inherited by the dark matter in a certain class of asymmetric dark matter models. In this article, we thoroughly investigate the signatures of the minimal realization of this idea. In this model a new (stable) inert Higgs, H', plays the role of the mediator that facilitates the asymmetry transfer from the visible to the dark sector. It also constitutes a small dark matter sub-component, while the dominant component stems from a singlet scalar asymmetry. A combination of phenomenological and cosmological constraints requires this new inert Higgs doublet to be quite light 46 GeV<m_H'< 580 GeV and its spectrum rather compressed, ΔM = m_H^±−m_H_0 ≲ 1 GeV and δm = m_A_0−m_H_0≲ 5 MeV. Therefore its charged component can be relatively long-lived on collider length-scales. By recasting searches for compressed Higgsinos at the LHC, we derive new limits on this particle and show that, while at present most of the parameter space for this state is still unconstrained, large and key regions of parameter space will be tested at the HL-LHC by a combination of searches for disappearing charged tracks and displaced soft tracks. Quite remarkably, the lifetime of the charged component of the doublet can be correlated with the dark matter interaction rate at direct detection experiments and we show that the next generation of direct detection experiments has a unique sensitivity to the parameter space in the model. The fact that a small neutral mass splitting is a prediction of the asymmetric setup makes it an interesting candidate to account for the high energy nuclear recoil event recently reported by the LZ experiment. More generally, our detailed phenomenological study holds for any dark matter model involving an inert Higgs doublet with mass below 580 GeV.
ER -