Beyond the bump-hunt: A game plan for discovering dynamical dark matter at the LHC

Abstract

Dynamical Dark Matter (DDM) is an alternative framework for dark-matter physics in which an ensemble of individual constituent fields with a spectrum of masses, lifetimes, and cosmological abundances collectively constitute the dark-matter candidate, and in which the traditional notion of dark-matter stability is replaced by a balancing between lifetimes and abundances across the ensemble. In this talk, we discuss the prospects for distinguishing between DDM ensembles and traditional dark-matter candidates at hadron colliders - and in particular, at the upgraded LHC - via the analysis of event-shape distributions of kinematic variables. We also examine the correlations between these kinematic variables and other relevant collider variables in order to assess how imposing cuts on these additional variables may distort - for better or worse - their event-shape distributions.