Speaker
Description
Vector portal interactions provide a simple and theoretically well-motivated framework for connecting dark sectors to the Standard Model. In particular, dark photons and anomaly-free gauge bosons arise naturally in extensions of the Standard Model and can play a central role in dark matter phenomenology. In this talk, I first discuss scenarios in which dark photons mediate the interactions of GeV-scale thermal dark matter. Despite strong experimental constraints, viable regions of parameter space remain that can be tested at collider and direct detection experiments. If dark matter is only very feebly coupled, it can still be produced through the freeze-in mechanism. While the extremely weak interactions involved make these scenarios quite challenging to probe, I will show how they can nevertheless lead to observable signals in both electron and nuclear recoils at direct detection experiments, particularly if freeze-in occurs at low reheating temperatures.