On the construction of theories of composite dark matter

The dark matter remains one of the most famous unanswered questions in physics today. Despite the popular weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) paradigm, a new class of theories posit that dark matter could be described as the lightest bound state in a QCD-like strongly interacting hidden sector.

We discuss the construction of theories which describe the interactions of these states with other interesting bound states of the hidden sector, with a particular focus on symplectic gauge symmetries. We discuss the symmetries of these sectors, and show that they possess an expanded global symmetry group compared with standard model QCD. We present some early results for the LECs describing the spectrum of Sp(4) composite theories. Finally, we discuss the simplest portals which could allow us to look for such sectors at colliders and elsewhere, the associated symmetry breaking patterns, and the potential phenomenological consequences.