High-Energy Physics & RIKEN Theory Seminar

We emphasize the stabilizing symmetry for dark matter does not have to be the commonly used parity symmetry. We therefore examine the potential of the CERN Large Hadron Collider to distinguish models with parity stabilized dark matter from models in which the dark matter is stabilized by other symmetries. We begin this talk by focusing on signatures involving the decay of partners into final states with dark matter and the Standard Model particles. Later we present work distinguishing stabilization symmetries from signals involving meta-stable partners and dark matter. We show for models without a parity stabilization symmetry the reconstructed invariant mass potentially exhibits double kinematic endpoints due to appearance of one or two DM particles in the final state. For certain scenarios, these endpoints could be measured and the dark matter mass directly reconstructed. This is to be contrasted with the decay chains for parity stabilized models where only one DM candidate appears in the decay chain. We also note that certain decay chain "topologies,'' which are absent for the parity case, generates a "cusp'' in the invariant mass distribution of visible particles. Such generates a distinctive feature which is generally invariant of the various spin configurations. We demonstrate this by presenting novel reconstruction techniques. We illustrate these general ideas with explicit models.