Ana Luisa Foguel (São Paulo University)

Hidden Portals to (Light) Dark Sectors

Despite its remarkable success, the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics remains incomplete, with the absence of a dark matter (DM) candidate representing one of its primary gaps. Understanding the nature of DM therefore strongly motivates the search for new phenomena beyond the SM. While early searches focused on the discovery of new heavy particles, recent experimental advances have enabled the exploration of dark sectors with feebly interacting light particles, pushing particle physics into the ‘intensity frontier’ era. Guided by symmetry and simplicity, three renormalizable portals can connect such elusive dark sectors to the SM: the vector, scalar, and neutrino portals. In this talk, I will discuss the theory and selected phenomenology of each of these portals, highlighting their distinctive features and phenomenological implications. In particular, I will first focus on non-standard realizations of the vector portal, including scenarios involving inelastic and vector DM candidates, and then discuss a more general framework that links all three portals in a way capable of addressing the DM puzzle together with the origin of neutrino masses and the baryon asymmetry of the Universe.