Relic density of dark matter in the inert doublet model beyond leading order for the low mass region: 1. Renormalisation and constraints

The present paper is the first in a series that addresses the calculation of the full one-loop corrections of dark matter (DM) annihilation cross-sections in the low mass region of the inert doublet model (IDM). We first review the renormalisation of the model both in a fully on-shell (OS) scheme and a mixed scheme combining on-shell (for the masses) and a $\overline{{\rm MS}}$ approach when the partial invisible width is closed and does not allow the use of a full OS scheme. The scale dependence introduced by the mixed scheme is shown to be tracked through an analysis of a parametrisation of the tree-level cross-section and the $\beta$ constant of a specific coupling. We discuss how to minimise the scale dependence. The theoretical uncertainty brought by the scale dependence leads us to introduce a new criterion on the perturbativity of the IDM. This criterion further delimits the allowed parameter space which we investigate carefully by including a host of constraints, both theoretical and experimental, including in particular, new data from the LHC. We come up with a set of benchmark points that cover three different mechanisms for a viable relic density of DM: {\it i)} a dominance of co-annihilation into a fermion pair, {\it ii)} annihilation into 2 vector bosons of which one is off-shell that requires the calculation of a $2 \to 3$ process at one-loop, {\it iii)} annihilation that proceeds through the very narrow standard model Higgs resonance. Since the $2 \to 3$ vector boson channel features in all three channels and is essentially a build up on the simpler annihilation to OS vector bosons, we study the latter in detail in the present paper. We confirm again that the corrected cross-sections involve a parameter that represents rescattering in the dark sector that a tree-level computation in not sensitive to.