Connecting dark matter UV complete models to direct detection rates via effective field theory

Abstract: Direct searches for WIMPs are sensitive to physics well below the weak scale. In the absence of light mediators, it is fruitful to apply an Effective Field Theory (EFT) approach accounting only for dark matter (DM) interactions with Standard Model (SM) fields. We consider a singlet fermion WIMP and effective operators up to dimension 6 which are generated at the mass scale of particles mediating DM interactions with the SM. We perform a one-loop Renormalization Group Evolution (RGE) analysis, evolving these effective operators from the mediators mass scale to the nuclear scales probed by direct searches. We apply our results to models with DM velocity-suppressed interactions, DM couplings only to heavy quarks, leptophilic DM and Higgs portal, which without our analysis would not get constrained from direct detection bounds. Remarkably, a large parameter space region for these models is found to be excluded as a consequence of spin-independent couplings induced by SM loops. In addition to these examples, we stress that more general renormalizable models for singlet fermion WIMP can be matched onto our EFT framework, and the subsequent model-independent RGE can be used to compute direct detection rates. Our results allow us to properly connect the different energy scales involved in constraining WIMP models, and to combine information from direct detection with other complementary searches, such as collider and indirect detection.