Electroweak renormalization of neutralino-Higgs interactions at one-loop and its impacts on spin-independent direct detection of Wino-like dark matter

TL;DR

This paper improves the theoretical calculation of Wino-like neutralino dark matter interactions by including one-loop electroweak corrections, significantly impacting predictions for direct detection experiments.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive one-loop electroweak correction calculation for neutralino-Higgs interactions, including counterterms, enhancing the accuracy of DM-nucleon cross-section predictions.

Findings

Cross-sections can vary by over 100% with corrections.

Electroweak corrections significantly affect direct detection prospects.

Inclusion of counterterms refines theoretical estimates.

Abstract

A Wino-like neutralino dark matter (DM) in the form of the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) has been considered one of the popular paradigms that can naturally accommodate {\it new physics} at a relatively higher scale, typically beyond the reach of the LHC. The constraint on the DM relic density typically implies a lightest neutralino mass $\simeq 2$ TeV. Its observational signature through nuclear recoil experiments, specifically involving DM-nucleon spin-independent (SI) scattering, is not impressive, following its high masses and tiny Higgsino fractions. The theoretical calculations can be improved when we compute all the one-loop electroweak (EW) corrections to the three-point vertices for the neutralino (Wino)-Higgs interactions, which in turn boosts the DM-nucleon scattering cross-sections through the SM-like Higgs exchange. Importantly, we include the counterterm contributions. In addition, we incorporate the other next-to-leading order (NLO) EW DM-quark and DM-gluon interactions present in the literature to calculate the DM-nucleon cross-sections. With the improved and precise theoretical estimates, DM-nucleon scattering cross-sections may increase or decrease significantly by more than $100\%$ compared to leading order (LO) cross-sections in different parts of the parameter space.