Dark matter at colliders: A model-independent approach

Assuming that cosmological dark matter consists of weakly interacting massive particles, we use the recent precise measurement of cosmological parameters to predict the guaranteed rates of production of such particles in association with photons at electron-positron colliders. Our approach is based on general physical principles such as detailed balancing and soft/collinear factorization. It leads to predictions that are valid across a broad range of models containing WIMPs, including supersymmetry, universal extra dimensions, and many others. We also discuss the discovery prospects for the predicted experimental signatures.

Figure 1

Values of the quantity ${\sigma }_{\mathrm{a}\mathrm{n}}$ defined in (3) allowed at $2\sigma$ level as a function of the WIMP mass. The lower (upper) band is for models where $s$-wave ($p$-wave) annihilation dominates.

Figure 2

Comparison between the photon spectra from the process $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to 2{\chi }_1^0+\gamma$ in the explicit supersymmetric models defined in the text (red/dark-gray) and the spectra predicted by Eq. (9) for a $p$-annihilator of the corresponding mass and ${\kappa }_e$ (green/light-gray).

Figure 3

The reach of a 500 GeV unpolarized electron-positron collider with an integrated luminosity of 500 fb$-1$ for the discovery of $p$-annihilator WIMPs, as a function of the WIMP mass $M_{\chi }$ and the $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ annihilation fraction ${\kappa }_e$. The three $\sigma$ (black) and five $\sigma$ (green/light-gray) contours are shown. The dashed lines include only statistical uncertainty, whereas the solid lines include a systematic uncertainty of 0.3% [7].