No Arabic abstract
We present a focused study of a predictive unified model whose measurable consequences are immediately relevant to early discovery prospects of supersymmetry at the LHC. ATLAS and CMS have released their analysis with 35~pb$^{-1}$ of data and the model class we discuss is consistent with this data. It is shown that with an increase in luminosity the LSP dark matter mass and the gluino mass can be inferred from simple observables such as kinematic edges in leptonic channels and peak values in effective mass distributions. Specifically, we consider cases in which the neutralino is of low mass and where the relic density consistent with WMAP observations arises via the exchange of Higgs bosons in unified supergravity models. The magnitudes of the gaugino masses are sharply limited to focused regions of the parameter space, and in particular the dark matter mass lies in the range $sim (50-65) ~rm GeV$ with an upper bound on the gluino mass of $575~{rm GeV}$, with a typical mass of $450~{rm GeV}$. We find that all model points in this paradigm are discoverable at the LHC at $sqrt s = 7 rm ~TeV$. We determine lower bounds on the entire sparticle spectrum in this model based on existing experimental constraints. In addition, we find the spin-independent cross section for neutralino scattering on nucleons to be generally in the range of $sigma^{rm SI}_{ a p} = 10^{-46 pm 1}~rm cm^2$ with much higher cross sections also possible. Thus direct detection experiments such as CDMS and XENON already constrain some of the allowed parameter space of the low mass gaugino models and further data will provide important cross-checks of the model assumptions in the near future.
We analyze supergravity models that predict a low mass gluino within the landscape of sparticle mass hierarchies. The analysis includes a broad class of models that arise in minimal and in non-minimal supergravity unified frameworks and in extended models with additional $U(1)^n_X$ hidden sector gauge symmetries. Gluino masses in the range $(350-700)$ GeV are investigated. Masses in this range are promising for early discovery at the LHC at $sqrt s =7$ TeV (LHC-7). The models exhibit a wide dispersion in the gaugino-Higgsino eigencontent of their LSPs and in their associated sparticle mass spectra. A signature analysis is carried out and the prominent discovery channels for the models are identified with most models needing only $sim 1 rm fb^{-1}$ for discovery at LHC-7. In addition, significant variations in the discovery capability of the low mass gluino models are observed for models in which the gluino masses are of comparable size due to the mass splittings in different models and the relative position of the light gluino within the various sparticle mass hierarchies. The models are consistent with the current stringent bounds from the Fermi-LAT, CDMS-II, XENON100, and EDELWEISS-2 experiments. A subclass of these models, which include a mixed-wino LSP and a Higgsino LSP, are also shown to accommodate the positron excess seen in the PAMELA satellite experiment.
Cosmological and astrophysical observations provide increasing evidence of the existence of dark matter in our Universe. Dark matter particles with a mass above a few GeV can be captured by the Sun, accumulate in the core, annihilate, and produce high energy neutrinos either directly or by subsequent decays of Standard Model particles. We investigate the prospects for indirect dark matter detection in the IceCube/DeepCore neutrino telescope and its capabilities to determine the dark matter mass.
With sufficient data, Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments can constrain the selectron-smuon mass splitting through differences in the di-electron and di-muon edges from supersymmetry (SUSY) cascade decays. We study the sensitivity of the LHC to this mass splitting, which within mSUGRA may be constrained down to O(10^{-4}) for 30 fb^{-1} of integrated luminosity. Over substantial regions of SUSY breaking parameter space the fractional edge splitting can be significantly enhanced over the fractional mass splitting. Within models where the selectron and smuon are constrained to be universal at a high scale, edge splittings up to a few percent may be induced by renormalisation group effects and may be significantly discriminated from zero. The edge splitting provides important information about high-scale SUSY breaking terms and should be included in any fit of LHC data to high-scale models.
We revisit MSSM scenarios with light neutralino as a dark matter candidate in view of the latest LHC and dark matter direct and indirect detection experiments. We show that scenarios with a very light neutralino (~ 10 GeV) and a scalar bottom quark close in mass, can satisfy all the available constraints from LEP, Tevatron, LHC, flavour and low energy experiments and provide solutions in agreement with the bulk of dark matter direct detection experiments, and in particular with the recent CDMS results.
Supersymmetry, a new symmetry that relates bosons and fermions in particle physics, still escapes observation. Search for SUSY is one of the main aims of the recently launched Large Hadron Collider. The other possible manifestation of SUSY is the Dark Matter in the Universe. The present lectures contain a brief introduction to supersymmetry in particle physics. The main notions of supersymmetry are introduced. The supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model - the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model - is considered in more detail. Phenomenological features of the MSSM as well as possible experimental signatures of SUSY at the LHC are described. The DM problem and its possible SUSY solution is presented.