Dark forces at the Tevatron

Abstract

A simple explanation of the W+dijet excess recently reported by the CDF collaboration involves the introduction of a new gauge boson with sizable couplings to quarks, but with no or highly suppressed couplings to leptons. Anomaly-free theories which include such a leptophobic gauge boson must also include additional particle content, which may include a stable and otherwise viable candidate for dark matter. Based on the couplings and mass of the Z' required to generate the CDF excess, we predict such a dark matter candidate to possess an elastic scattering cross section with nucleons on the order of σ̃10-40 cm2, providing a natural explanation for the signals reported by the CoGeNT and DAMA/LIBRA collaborations. In this light, CDF may be observing the gauge boson responsible for the force which mediates the interactions between the dark and visible matter of our universe. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.