Complementarity of Dark Matter Searches in the pMSSM

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how various current and future dark matter detection methods complement each other in exploring the pMSSM parameter space, emphasizing the importance of combined approaches for identifying neutralino dark matter.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive assessment of the sensitivities and complementarities of collider and detection experiments within the pMSSM framework for dark matter searches.

Findings

Different experiments probe orthogonal regions of parameter space.

Advances in each detection method are necessary for full coverage.

Null results can exclude certain dark matter annihilation mechanisms.

Abstract

As is well known, the search for and eventual identification of dark matter in supersymmetry requires a simultaneous, multi-pronged approach with important roles played by the LHC as well as both direct and indirect dark matter detection experiments. We examine the capabilities of these approaches in the 19-parameter p(henomenological)MSSM which provides a general framework for complementarity studies of neutralino dark matter. We summarize the sensitivity of dark matter searches at the 7, 8 (and eventually 14) TeV LHC, combined with those by \Fermi, CTA, IceCube/DeepCore, COUPP, LZ and XENON. The strengths and weaknesses of each of these techniques are examined and contrasted and their interdependent roles in covering the model parameter space are discussed in detail. We find that these approaches explore orthogonal territory and that advances in each are necessary to cover the Supersymmetric WIMP parameter space. We also find that different experiments have widely varying sensitivities to the various dark matter annihilation mechanisms, some of which would be completely excluded by null results from these experiments.