Dark matter detection in focus point supersymmetry

We determine the prospects for direct and indirect detection of thermal relic neutralinos in supersymmetric theories with multi-TeV squarks and sleptons. We consider the concrete example of the focus point region of minimal supergravity, but our results are generically valid for all models with decoupled scalars and mixed Bino-Higgsino or Higgsino-like dark matter. We determine the parameter space consistent with a 125 GeV Higgs boson including 3-loop corrections in the calculation of the Higgs mass. These corrections increase $m_h$ by 1–3 GeV, lowering the preferred scalar mass scale and decreasing the fine-tuning measure in these scenarios. We then systematically examine prospects for dark matter direct and indirect detection. Direct detection constraints do not exclude these models, especially for $\mu <0$. At the same time, the scenario generically predicts spin-independent signals just beyond current bounds. We also consider indirect detection with neutrinos, gamma rays, antiprotons, and antideuterons. Current IceCube neutrino constraints are competitive with direct detection, implying bright prospects for complementary searches with both direct and indirect detection.

Figure 1

Contours of $m_0$ in TeV (solid blue) and fine-tuning parameter $c$ (dot-dashed gold) in the $(\tan \beta ,M_{1/2})$ plane for ${\Omega }_{\chi }\simeq 0.23$, $A_0=0$ and $\mu <0$ (left) and $\mu >0$ (right). The red shaded regions at low $M_{1/2}$ are excluded by the ATLAS gluino bound [24]. In the gray shaded regions at large $\tan \beta$, the RG evolution in SOFTSUSY becomes unreliable, and in the green shaded region at large $M_{1/2}$ for $\mu <0$, numerical issues with loop corrections to neutralino masses make the solution algorithm for $\Omega$ unreliable.

Figure 2

Contours of $m_{\chi }$ in GeV (black dotted) and $|a_{\tilde{B}}|$ (solid colored).

Figure 3

Contours of $m_h$ in GeV. In the shaded regions, the theoretical prediction for $m_h$ is within $1\sigma$ and $2\sigma$ of the experimental central value $m_h=125.5\mathrm{GeV}$, where ${\sigma }^2\equiv {\Delta }_{\mathrm{th}}^2+(1\mathrm{GeV}{)}^2$.

Figure 4

Contours of spin-independent scattering cross section ${\sigma }_p^{\mathrm{SI}}$ in zb. The shaded regions are excluded by XENON100 [37], assuming local dark matter density ${\rho }_{\mathrm{local}}=0.3\mathrm{GeV}/{\mathrm{cm}}^3$ (light shaded) and ${\rho }_{\mathrm{local}}=0.15\mathrm{GeV}/{\mathrm{cm}}^3$ (dark shaded).

Figure 5

Contours of the spin-dependent neutralino-proton scattering cross section ${\sigma }_p^{\mathrm{SD}}$ in pb. The shaded region indicates the reach of COUPP-60 [59] after 12 months with ${\rho }_{\mathrm{local}}=0.3\mathrm{GeV}/{\mathrm{cm}}^3$.

Figure 6

The flux of muons in units of ${\mathrm{km}}^{-2}{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}$ with energies above 1 GeV at IceCube. The shaded region is excluded by current limits from IceCube/DeepCore [62].

Figure 7

The flux of muons in units of ${\mathrm{km}}^{-2}{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}$ with energies above 100 GeV at IceCube. The shaded region shows the originally anticipated sensitivity region for 180 live days for the IceCube/DeepCore system [63].

Figure 8

The flux of muons in units of ${\mathrm{km}}^{-2}{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}$ with energies above 1 GeV at IceCube from dark matter annihilation in the center of the Earth.

Figure 9

Gamma ray searches in the focus point region. The curves indicate constant values for the branching ratio for neutralino pair annihilation into two photons. Null results from Fermi searches for a monochromatic gamma-ray line do not put any constraint on this plane. Null results for continuum gamma-ray signals with Fermi using stacked dwarf galaxies also do not exclude any of this parameter space. However, improvements of current bounds on the gamma-ray continuum will probe the parameter space. The shaded regions indicate the performance of searches for a continuum gamma-ray signal, assuming current sensitivities are improved by factors of 5 and 20, as indicated.

Figure 10

The differential flux of antiprotons in units of ${\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}{\mathrm{sr}}^{-1}$ at an energy of 19.6 GeV.

Figure 11

The flux of antideuterons at an energy of 1 GeV, in units of ${\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}{\mathrm{sr}}^{-1}$.