2010
Searching for a Scalar WIMP at the LHC
by
→
Pacific/Honolulu
417A (Watanabe Hall)
417A
Watanabe Hall
Description
One of the primary aims of the present generation of particle physics experiments is to determine the nature of the dark matter; another is to uncover information about the sector responsible for electroweak-symmetry breaking. In this talk, I will discuss the implications for both of these endeavors in a simple yet versatile scenario in which the scalar sector of the Standard Model is expanded to include one or more additional SU(2) doublets, commonly known as "inert doublets," which do not contribute to electroweak-symmetry breaking or to the generation of fermion masses. Scenarios of this sort have a wide variety of beneficial phenomenological implications, not least of which is that they generically yield a viable scalar WIMP dark-matter candidate. The phenomenology of a scalar WIMP can differ substantially even from that of other WIMPs (e.g. the lightest neutralino in supersymmetric models); hence I will discuss the prospects for detecting such a particle, in the context of this prototypical framework, at dark-matter direct-detection experiments, high-energy neutrino facilities, and, in particular, at the CERN LHC.