Asymptotic safety in the dark

Abstract

We explore the Renormalization Group flow of massive uncharged fermions -- a candidate for dark matter -- coupled to a scalar field through a Higgs portal. We find that fermionic fluctuations can lower the bound on the scalar mass that arises from vacuum stability. Further, we discuss that despite the perturbative nonrenormalizability of the model, it could be ultraviolet complete at an asymptotically safe fixed point. In our approximation, this simple model exhibits two mechanisms for asymptotic safety: a balance of fermionic and bosonic fluctuations generates a fixed point in the scalar self-interaction; asymptotic safety in the portal coupling is triggered through a balance of canonical scaling and quantum fluctuations. As a consequence of asymptotic safety in the dark sector, the low-energy value of the portal coupling could become a function of the dark fermion mass and the scalar mass, thereby reducing the viable parameter space of the model.