Constraining the Higgs portal with antiprotons

Abstract

The scalar Higgs portal is a compelling model of dark matter (DM) in which a renormalizable coupling with the Higgs boson provides the connection between the visible world and the dark sector. In this paper we investigate the constraint placed on the parameter space of this model by the antiproton data. Due to the fact that the antiproton- to-proton ratio has relative less systematic uncertainties than the antiproton absolute flux, we propose and explore the possibility to combine all the available [bar over p]/p data. Following this approach, we are able to obtain stronger limits if compared with the existing literature. In particular, we show that most of the parameter space close to the Higgs resonance is ruled out by our analysis. Furthermore, by studying the reach of the future AMS-02 antiproton and antideuteron data, we argue that a DM mass of O(150) GeV offers a promising discovery potential. The method of combining all the antiproton-to-proton ratio data proposed in this paper is quite general, and can be straightforwardly applied to other models.