Supersymmetry and the collider dark matter picture

Abstract

One of the key questions in particle physics and astrophysics is the nature of dark matter, which existence has been confirmed in many astrophysical and cosmological observations. Besides direct and indirect detection experiments, collider searches for dark matter offer the unique possibility to not only detect dark matter particles but in case of discovery to also study their properties by making statements about the potential underlying theory. The search program for dark matter at the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider is comprehensive, and includes both supersymmetric dark matter candidates and other alternatives. This review presents the latest status in these searches, with special focus on supersymmetric dark matter particles. 0:49 WSPC/INSTRUCTION FILE SUSY˙DM˙collider˙3 Supersymmetry and the collider Dark Matter picture 3 in the decay of a mediator particle connecting SM and DM particles. A few example searches are illustrated in Sec. 6. A third class of models considers the direct decay of Higgs or Z bosons into DM particles (invisible Higgs-and Z boson decays). An example for searches for invisible Higgs decays is given in Sec. 7. A more extensive recent review on the non-SUSY DM searches at the LHC is given in Ref. 14. The searches, with different targets and interpretations, are complementary and provide a wide coverage of possible DM scenarios at colliders. A comparison of collider searches with DD experiments is given in Secs. 5 and 8.The LHC, ATLAS and CMS had two successful data-taking periods. In the first period (Run-1) from 2010-2012, pp-collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 and 8 TeV resulted in a total statistics of about 5 fb −1 at 7 TeV and 20 fb −1 at 8 TeV. After a technical stop with upgrades to the collider and detectors, pp-collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV resumed in 2015 -2018. Due to the only recent end of this second data-taking period (Run-2) many analyses at ATLAS and CMS do not use the full dataset yet, but showed results with the partial 2015-2016 dataset amounting to about 36 fb −1 or the partial 2015-2017 dataset with about 80 fb −1 . Only recently, the first results using the full dataset of ∼ 140 fb −1 were presented by a small number of analyses. The dataset of Run-2 is significantly larger and at higher energy than the dataset in Run-1 and thus allows -as shown in the further course of this review -to perform certain searches for electroweakly produced SUSY particles for the first time at LHC experiments. Models in DM searchesDifferent models, depending on the underlying theory, are used in the design and interpretation of searches for DM particles at colliders. SupersymmetrySupersymmetry 15 introduces an additional symmetry between fermions and bosons and extends space-time symmetry. Of the different supersymmetric theories possible, only the low-energy realization of N = 1 SUSY might be accessible to present colliders. The most common considered model is the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) 16,17 which is the minimal p...

Dark Matter Constraints and the Neutralino Sector of the scNMSSM

“…A well-motivated candidate for DM is the neutralino lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) in supersymmetric (SUSY) models [7]. However, such models are being challenged by recent null results from experiments, including DM searches [8][9][10][11][12][13]. DM searches can be categorized into collider, direct detection, and indirect detection searches.…”

Dark matter constraints and the neutralino sector of the scNMSSM

“…A well-motivated candidate for DM is the neutralino LSP in SUSY models [7]. However, such models are being challenged by recent null results from experiments, including DM searches [8][9][10][11][12][13]. The latter can be categorized into collider, direct detection, and indirect detection searches.…”