Electroweak Symmetry Breaking induced by Dark Matter

TL;DR

The paper investigates whether electroweak symmetry breaking can be driven radiatively by dark matter within the Inert Doublet Model, a minimal two-Higgs-doublet extension with a Z2 symmetry that stabilizes a dark matter candidate. It shows that the inert doublet’s loop contributions can trigger EWSB in a Coleman-Weinberg–like mechanism and yield a viable Higgs mass and DM relic density when custodial symmetry controls mass splittings. The analysis indicates necessary conditions—large positive quartic couplings to induce EWSB, a light DM candidate below the W mass, and near-degenerate inert states to satisfy EW precision tests—leading to a Higgs mass bound of about 350 GeV and DM mass around 10–72 GeV. While promising, the results rely on large couplings and are sensitive to higher-order effects, but they point to a testable link between dark matter phenomenology and EWSB in the IDM.

Abstract

The mechanism behind Electroweak Symmetry Breaking (EWSB) and the nature of dark matter (DM) are currently among the most important issues in high energy physics. Since a natural dark matter candidate is a weakly interacting massive particle or WIMP, with mass around the electroweak scale, it is clearly of interest to investigate the possibility that DM and EWSB are closely related. In the context of a very simple extension of the Standard Model, the Inert Doublet Model, we show that dark matter could play a crucial role in the breaking of the electroweak symmetry. In this model, dark matter is the lightest component of an inert scalar doublet. The coupling of the latter with the Standard Model Higgs doublet breaks the electroweak symmetry at one-loop, "a la Coleman-Weinberg". The abundance of dark matter, the breaking of the electroweak symmetry and the constraints from electroweak precision measurements can all be accommodated by imposing an (exact or approximate) custodial symmetry.