  In this work, we address two paradoxes. The first is that the measured
dark-matter relic density can be satisfied with new physics at O(100 GeV - 1
TeV), while the null results from direct-detection experiments place lower
bounds of O(10 TeV) on a new-physics scale. The second puzzle is that the
severe suppression of lepton-flavor-violating processes involving electrons,
e.g. mu->3e, tau->e mu mu, etc., implies that generic new-physics contributions
to lepton interactions cannot exist below O(10 - 100 TeV), whereas the 3.6sigma
deviation of the muon g-2 from the standard model can be explained by a
new-physics scale < O(1 TeV). Here, we suggest that it may not be a coincidence
that both the muon g-2 and the relic density can be satisfied by a new-physics
scale < 1 TeV. We consider the possibility of a gauged lepton-flavor
interaction that couples at tree level only to mu- and tau-flavored leptons and
the dark sector. Dark matter thus interacts appreciably only with particles of
mu and tau flavor at tree level and has loop-suppressed couplings to quarks and
electrons. Remarkably, if such a gauged flavor interaction exists at a scale
O(100 GeV - 1 TeV), it allows for a consistent phenomenological framework,
compatible with the muon g-2, the relic density, direct detection, indirect
detection, charged-lepton decays, neutrino trident production, and results from
hadron and e+e- colliders. We suggest experimental tests for these ideas at
colliders and for low-energy observables.
