Connecting LHC, ILC, and Quintessence

TL;DR

This paper explores how measurements from the LHC and ILC can simultaneously probe dark matter properties and dark energy models, especially in non-standard cosmologies like kination-dominated quintessence, using benchmark supersymmetry scenarios.

Contribution

It demonstrates that collider experiments can precisely determine dark matter and dark energy parameters, potentially revealing non-standard cosmological models such as kination-dominated quintessence.

Findings

Collider measurements can distinguish kination-dominated quintessence from standard cosmology.

LHC and ILC combined can accurately measure dark matter and dark energy parameters.

Results suggest collider experiments can serve as alternative probes for dark energy models.

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.