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Abstract

Conventional approaches to describe dark matter phenomenology at collider and (in)direct detection experiments in the form of dark matter effective field theory or simplified models suffer in general from drawbacks regarding validity at high energies and/or generality, limiting their applicability. In order to avoid these shortcomings, we propose a hybrid framework in the form of an effective theory, including, however, both the dark matter states and a mediator connecting the former to the Standard Model fields. Since the mediation can be realized through rather light new dynamical fields allowing for non-negligible collider signals in missing energy searches, the framework remains valid for the phenomenologically interesting parameter region, while retaining correlations dictated by gauge symmetry. Moreover, a richer new-physics sector can be consistently included via higher-dimensional operators. Interestingly, for fermionic and scalar dark matter with a (pseudo-)scalar mediator, the leading effects originate from dimension-five operators, allowing to capture them with a rather small set of new couplings. We finally examine the correlations between constraints from reproducing the correct relic density, direct-detection experiments, and mono-jet and Higgs + missing energy signatures at the LHC and point out new cancellation patterns in direct-detection, emerging non-trivially in the effective theory.