Stau detection at neutrino telescopes in scenarios with supersymmetric dark matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates the detection prospects of long-lived staus at IceCube, considering scenarios with supersymmetric dark matter, and finds that the expected flux is about one event per year under certain conditions.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of long-lived stau detection at neutrino telescopes within supersymmetric dark matter models, including superWIMP and neutralino scenarios.

Findings

Maximum stau flux is about 1 event/year for light staus.

Constraints on gravitino and axino masses are derived.

Flux can increase with non-universal soft parameters in supergravity.

Abstract

We have studied the detection of long-lived staus at the IceCube neutrino telescope, after their production inside the Earth through the inelastic scattering of high energy neutrinos. The theoretical predictions for the stau flux are calculated in two scenarios in which the presence of long-lived staus is naturally associated to viable supersymmetric dark matter. Namely, we consider the cases with superWIMP (gravitino or axino) and neutralino dark matter (along the coannihilation region). In both scenarios the maximum value of the stau flux turns out to be about 1 event/yr in regions with a light stau. This is consistent with light gravitinos, with masses constrained by an upper limit which ranges from 0.2 to 15 GeV, depending on the stau mass. Likewise, it is compatible with axinos with a mass of about 1 GeV and a very low reheating temperature of order 100 GeV. In the case of the neutralino dark matter this favours regions with a low value of tan(beta), for which the neutralino-stau coannihilation region occurs for smaller values of the stau mass. Finally, we study the case of a general supergravity theory and show how for specific choices of non-universal soft parameters the predicted stau flux can increase moderately.