Characterising WIMPs at a future $e^+e^-$ Linear Collider

TL;DR

This paper explores how a future electron-positron collider could detect and measure properties of WIMP dark matter through specific production processes, emphasizing the importance of beam polarization and systematic uncertainties.

Contribution

It presents a model-independent analysis of WIMP detection prospects at the ILC, incorporating realistic detector simulations and beam effects to evaluate measurement precision.

Findings

Detection potential is significantly enhanced with polarized beams.

Masses and cross-sections of WIMPs can be measured with about 1% accuracy.

Systematic uncertainties include polarisation measurement and beam energy spectrum shape.

Abstract

We investigate the prospects for detecting and measuring the parameters of WIMP dark matter in a model independent way at the International Linear Collider. The signal under study is direct WIMP pair production with associated initial state radiation $e^+e^- \rightarrow \chi\chi\gamma$. The analysis accounts for the beam energy spectrum of the ILC and the dominant machine induced backgrounds. The influence of the detector parameters are incorporated by full simulation and event reconstruction within the framework of the ILD detector concept. We show that by using polarised beams, the detection potential is significantly increased by reduction of the dominant SM background of radiative neutrino production $e^+e^- \rightarrow \nu\nu\gamma$. The dominant sources of systematic uncertainty are the precision of the polarisation measurement and the shape of the beam energy spectrum. With an integrated luminosity of 500 fb the helicity structure of the interaction involved can be inferred, and the masses and cross-sections can be measured with a relative accuracy of the order of 1 %.