Researchers K. S. Babu of Oklahoma State University, P. S. Bhupal Dev of Washington University, and Anil Thapa of the University of Kansas have recently published a study exploring the interactions between neutrinos and dark matter. Their work, titled “Large Neutrino-Dark Matter Interactions: From Effective Field Theory to Ultraviolet Completions,” was published in the journal Physical Review D.
The team developed a comprehensive framework using effective field theory (EFT) to systematically investigate all possible interactions between neutrinos and dark matter. They aimed to identify simple, ultraviolet (UV)-complete models that could realize significant neutrino-dark matter interactions while adhering to existing theoretical and experimental constraints.
The researchers first constructed a basis for neutrino-dark matter scattering in a low-energy effective theory, which they termed DM-LEFT. They then embedded this basis into the Standard Model EFT, referred to as DM-SMEFT. Using a topology-based classification, they identified all renormalizable tree-level UV completions that generate the relevant DM-SMEFT operators up to dimension-8.
The study presents minimal UV-complete models for different types of dark matter that can yield effective neutrino-dark matter couplings significantly larger than the Fermi coupling, while satisfying all constraints, particularly those related to neutrino mass and the charged-lepton sector. These models include a pseudo-Dirac fermion dark matter realization in the scotogenic neutrino mass model and models of Majorana dark matter inspired by type-II and inverse seesaw-based neutrino mass models.
The researchers also analyzed the phenomenological implications of their findings, including dark matter thermal relic abundance, direct detection prospects, and various cosmological and laboratory constraints on the model parameter space. While this research is primarily theoretical and does not directly address energy industry applications, a deeper understanding of dark matter and its interactions could potentially inform future developments in energy technologies, particularly those related to nuclear and particle physics.
The study was published in Physical Review D, a peer-reviewed journal covering research in particle physics, fields, gravitation, and cosmology.
This article is based on research available at arXiv.