A simple and well-motivated explanation for the origin of dark matter is that it consists of thermal relic particles that get their mass entirely through electroweak symmetry breaking .
The simplest models implementing this possibility predict a dark matter candidate that consists of a mixture of two Dirac neutrinos with opposite isospin , and so has suppressed coupling to the Z .
These models predict dark matter masses of m _ { DM } \approx 45 GeV or m _ { DM } \approx 90 - 95 GeV and WIMP-neutron spin-independent cross sections \sigma _ { WIMP - n } \sim 10 ^ { -6 } -10 ^ { -8 } pb .
Current direct dark matter searches are probing a portion of the parameter space of these models while future experiments sensitive to \sigma _ { WIMP - n } \sim 10 ^ { -8 } pb will probe the remainder .
An enhancement of the galactic halo gamma ray and positron flux coming from annihilations of these particles is also expected across the \sim 1 - 100 GeV range .
The framework further suggests an environmental explanation of the hierarchy between the weak and Planck scales and of the small value of the cosmological constant relative to the weak scale .