Identification of Dark Matter particles with LHC and direct detection data

TL;DR

Combining LHC and direct detection data improves dark matter particle property reconstruction, especially in supersymmetric models, by leveraging assumptions about local density scaling with relic abundance.

Contribution

This paper introduces a combined analysis method of LHC and direct detection data to better determine dark matter properties, assuming local density scales with relic abundance.

Findings

Future ton-scale direct detection experiments can break parameter degeneracies.

Combined data analysis improves neutralino composition reconstruction.

Method enhances understanding of dark matter relic density.

Abstract

Dark matter (DM) is currently searched for with a variety of detection strategies. Accelerator searches are particularly promising, but even if Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are found at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), it will be difficult to prove that they constitute the bulk of the DM in the Universe. We show that a significantly better reconstruction of the DM properties can be obtained with a combined analysis of LHC and direct detection (DD) data, by making a simple Ansatz on the WIMP local density, i.e. by assuming that the local density scales with the cosmological relic abundance. We demonstrate this method in an explicit example in the context of a 24-parameter supersymmetric model, with a neutralino LSP in the stau co-annihilation region. Our results show that future ton-scale DD experiments will allow to break degeneracies in the SUSY parameter space and achieve a significantly better reconstruction of the neutralino composition and its relic density than with LHC data alone.