Connecting LHC, ILC, and quintessence

Abstract

If the cold dark matter consists of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), anticipated measurements of the WIMP properties at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the International Linear Collider (ILC) will provide an unprecedented experimental probe of cosmology at temperatures of order 1 GeV. It is worth emphasizing that the expected outcome of these tests may or may not be consistent with the picture of standard cosmology. For example, in kination-dominated quintessence models of dark energy, the dark matter relic abundance can be significantly enhanced compared to that obtained from freeze out in a radiation-dominated universe. Collider measurements then will simultaneously probe both dark matter and dark energy. In this article, we investigate the precision to which the LHC and ILC can determine the dark matter and dark energy parameters under those circumstances. We use an illustrative set of four benchmark points in minimal supergravity in analogy with the four LCC benchmark points. The precision achievable together at the LHC and ILC is sufficient to discover kination-dominated quintessence, under the assumption that the WIMPs are the only dark matter component. The LHC and ILC can thus play important roles as alternative probes of both dark matter and dark energy.

Relic density and future colliders: inverse problem(s)

“…The cosmology of the primordial Universe could therefore be much more complex, and the pre-BBN era could have for example experienced a slower or faster expansion. Such a modified expansion, even though still compatible with the BBN or the WMAP results, would change the LSP freeze-out time and the amount of relic density (see for example [4,11,12,13]). A similar question exists concerning the entropy content of the Universe at that period, and the eventual consequences on the energy conservation in the primodial epochs (see for example [14,15,16,17]).…”

Dark Matter and Lhc: What Is the Connection?

“…One can also show that there is a significant effect for scalars which are dominated by their kinetic terms (e.g. kination models [25][26][27][28] ), which behave like the stiff fluid models discussed above (i.e. p = ρ).…”

Light neutralino dark matter in the pMSSM

“…First, the neutralino could be only one of several dark matter components. Then, if dark energy were the dominant component at the time of the relic freeze-out, it would result in an acceleration of the expansion of the Universe, which would lead to an earlier freeze-out and a much larger relic density [67][68][69][70][71]. Finally, entropy generation at the time of freeze-out, for example due to the decay of a late inflaton, can also lead to an increase -or a decrease -of the relic density [72][73][74][75][76].…”