Open Access

Flavor and electroweak precision constraints on a simplified dark matter model with a light spin-0 mediator

Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam-781039, India

^*Contact author: klipika@iitg.ac.in
^†Contact author: soumitra.nandi@iitg.ac.in

Phys. Rev. D 114, 035025 – Published 18 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yj31-gk7k

Abstract

This work investigates the allowed parameter spaces of a simplified dark matter (DM) model characterized by a spin-0 mediator with masses in the low to intermediate range ( $< 10 GeV$ ). We systematically divide the parameter space into various mass regions of the mediator and constrain the model parameters using a diverse set of observables, including flavor-changing charged and neutral current processes such as rare and semileptonic decays of pseudoscalar mesons (B and K), electroweak precision observables, alongside data from fixed-target experiments. Additionally, we explore the model’s capability to explain recent Belle II data on invisible B meson decays. Our study includes a detailed examination of DM properties and the constraints from big bang nucleosynthesis. We present bounds on model parameters through individual and simultaneous analyses of the available inputs and highlight their implications for understanding DM phenomenology. Furthermore, we obtain bounds on the couplings of the possible gauge-invariant dimension-5 operators, leading to the possible interactions between the spin-0 mediator and the SM gauge bosons and fermions. This study comprehensively investigates the constraints and theoretical implications associated with low-mass spin-0 mediator DM models.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 035025– Published 18 August, 2026

Vol. 114, Iss. 3 — 1 August 2026

Received 4 June 2026
Accepted 15 July 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yj31-gk7k

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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Flavor and electroweak precision constraints on a simplified dark matter model with a light spin-0 mediator

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