Collider and dark matter searches in the inert doublet model from Peccei-Quinn symmetry

Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) and axions are arguably the most compelling dark matter candidates in the literature. Could they coexist as dark matter particles? More importantly, can they be incorporated in a well motivated framework in agreement with experimental data? In this work, we show that this two component dark matter can be realized in the Inert Doublet Model in an elegant and natural manner by virtue of the spontaneous breaking of a Peccei-Quinn U(1)_PQ symmetry into a residual ℤ₂ symmetry. The WIMP stability is guaranteed by the ℤ₂ symmetry and a new dark matter component, the axion, arises. There are two interesting outcomes: (i) vector-like quarks needed to implement the Peccei-Quinn symmetry in the model may act as a portal between the dark sector and the SM fields with a supersymmetry-type phenomenology at colliders; (ii) two-component Inert Doublet Model re-opens the phenomenologically interesting 100–500 GeV mass region. We show that the model can successfully realize a two component dark matter framework and at the same time avoid low and high energy physics constraints such as monojet and dijet plus missing energy, as well as indirect and direct dark matter detection bounds.