An interesting possibility for dark matter is a scalar particle of mass of order 10 MeV–1 GeV, interacting with a $U(1)$ gauge boson (dark photon) which mixes with the photon. We present a simple and natural model realizing this possibility. The dark matter arises as a composite pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson (dark pion) in a non-Abelian gauge sector, which also gives a mass to the dark photon. For a fixed non-Abelian gauge group, $SU(N)$, and a $U(1)$ charge of the constituent dark quarks, the model has only three free parameters: the dynamical scale of the non-Abelian gauge theory, the gauge coupling of the dark photon, and the mixing parameter between the dark and standard model photons. In particular, the gauge symmetry of the model does not allow any mass term for the dark quarks, and the stability of the dark pion is understood as a result of an accidental global symmetry. The model has a significant parameter space in which thermal relic dark pions comprise all of the dark matter, consistently with all experimental and cosmological constraints. In a corner of the parameter space, the discrepancy of the muon $g-2$ between experiments and the standard model prediction can also be ameliorated due to a loop contribution of the dark photon. Smoking-gun signatures of the model include a monophoton signal from the $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collision into a photon and a “dark rho meson.” Observation of two processes in $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collision—the mode into the dark photon and that into the dark rho meson—would provide strong evidence for the model.

• Received 4 April 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.94.035013