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  • Open Access

New idea for relating the asymmetric dark matter mass scale to the proton mass

Peter Cox*, Rafael E. Pérez†, and Raymond R. Volkas‡

  • *Contact author: peter.cox@unimelb.edu.au
  • †Contact author: rperezpenara@student.unimelb.edu.au
  • ‡Contact author: raymondv@unimelb.edu.au
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 015024 – Published 16 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/6td2-yzyt

Abstract

Asymmetric dark matter is a well-motivated approach to explain the apparent coincidence between the relic densities of visible and dark matter, ΩD≃5.4Ωb. A complete explanation requires two components, a relation between the particle masses of the dark and visible matter, and a second relation between the number densities in each sector. In this work, we propose a new mechanism to address the former. We consider an extended SU(3)1×SU(3)2 color group in the visible sector, with QCD embedded as the diagonal subgroup. A Z2 exchange symmetry then relates SU(3)2 to a dark, confining SU(3)D sector. The dark matter is a composite state of dark fermions transforming in the fundamental representation of SU(3)D. The spontaneously broken Z2 symmetry ultimately leads to a relation between the QCD and dark gauge couplings which, for suitable field content, gives rise to confinement scales of the same order of magnitude. The mechanism leads to a rich particle spectrum above the TeV scale which could be probed at future experiments. The model also naturally includes an axion solution to the strong CP problem.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 015024– Published 16 July, 2026
  • Received 3 March 2026
  • Accepted 12 June 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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