We generalize in several directions our recent analysis of the limitations to the use of the effective field theory approach to study dark matter at the LHC. Firstly, we study the full list of operators connecting fermion DM to quarks and gluons, cor
responding to integrating out a heavy mediator in the $s$-channel; secondly, we provide analytical results for the validity of the EFT description for both $sqrt{s}=8$ {rm TeV} and $14$ {rm TeV}; thirdly, we make use of a MonteCarlo event generator approach to assess the validity of our analytical conclusions. We apply our results to revisit the current collider bounds on the ultraviolet cut-off scale of the effective field theory and show that these bounds are weakened once the validity conditions of the effective field theory are imposed.
Indirect searches can be used to test dark matter models against expected signals in various channels, in particular antiprotons. With antiproton data available soon at higher and higher energies, it is important to test the dark matter hypothesis ag
ainst alternative astrophysical sources, e.g. secondaries accelerated in supernova remnants. We investigate the two signals from different dark models and different supernova remnant parameters, as forecasted for the AMS-02, and show that they present a significant degeneracy.
We generalize in several directions our recent analysis of the limitations to the use of the effective field theory approach to study dark matter at the LHC. Firstly, we study the full list of operators connecting fermion DM to quarks and gluons, cor
responding to integrating out a heavy mediator in the $s$-channel; secondly, we provide analytical results for the validity of the EFT description for both $sqrt{s}=8$ {rm TeV} and $14$ {rm TeV}; thirdly, we make use of a MonteCarlo event generator approach to assess the validity of our analytical conclusions. We apply our results to revisit the current collider bounds on the ultraviolet cut-off scale of the effective field theory and show that these bounds are weakened once the validity conditions of the effective field theory are imposed.
We discuss the limitations to the use of the effective field theory approach to study dark matter at the LHC. We introduce and study a few quantities, some of them independent of the ultraviolet completion of the dark matter theory, which quantify th
e error made when using effective operators to describe processes with very high momentum transfer. Our criteria indicate up to what cutoff energy scale, and with what precision, the effective description is valid, depending on the dark matter mass and couplings.
We discuss a limitation on extracting bounds on the scattering cross section of dark matter with nucleons, using neutrinos from the Sun. If the dark matter particle is sufficiently light (less than about 4 GeV), the effect of evaporation is not negli
gible and the capture process goes in equilibrium with the evaporation. In this regime, the flux of solar neutrinos of dark matter origin becomes independent of the scattering cross section and therefore no constraint can be placed on it. We find the minimum values of dark matter masses for which the scattering cross section on nucleons can be probed using neutrinos from the Sun. We also provide simple and accurate fitting functions for all the relevant processes of GeV-scale dark matter in the Sun.
