Stop coannihilation in the CMSSM and SubGUT models

Stop coannihilation may bring the relic density of heavy supersymmetric dark matter particles into the range allowed by cosmology. The efficiency of this process is enhanced by stop-antistop annihilations into the longitudinal (Goldstone) modes of the W and Z bosons, as well as by Sommerfeld enhancement of stop annihilations and the effects of bound states. Since the couplings of the stops to the Goldstone modes are proportional to the trilinear soft supersymmetry-breaking A-terms, these annihilations are enhanced when the A-terms are large. However, the Higgs mass may be reduced below the measured value if the A-terms are too large. Unfortunately, the interpretation of this constraint on the stop coannihilation strip is clouded by differences between the available Higgs mass calculators. For our study, we use as our default calculator FeynHiggs 2.13.0, the most recent publicly available version of this code. Exploring the CMSSM parameter space, we find that along the stop coannihilation strip the masses of the stops are severely split by the large A-terms. This suppresses the Higgs mass drastically for μ andA 0 > 0 , whilst the extent of the stop coannihilation strip is limited forA 0 < 0 and either sign of μ . However, in sub-GUT models, reduced renormalization-group running mitigates the effect of the large A-terms, allowing larger LSP masses to be consistent with the Higgs mass calculation. We give examples where the dark matter particle mass may reach ≳ 8  TeV.

Likelihood analysis of the minimal AMSB model

We perform a likelihood analysis of the minimal anomaly-mediated supersymmetry-breaking (mAMSB) model using constraints from cosmology and accelerator experiments. We find that either a wino-like or a Higgsino-like neutralino LSP, [Formula: see text], may provide the cold dark matter (DM), both with similar likelihoods. The upper limit on the DM density from Planck and other experiments enforces [Formula: see text] after the inclusion of Sommerfeld enhancement in its annihilations. If most of the cold DM density is provided by the [Formula: see text], the measured value of the Higgs mass favours a limited range of [Formula: see text] (and also for [Formula: see text] if [Formula: see text]) but the scalar mass [Formula: see text] is poorly constrained. In the wino-LSP case, [Formula: see text] is constrained to about [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] to [Formula: see text], whereas in the Higgsino-LSP case [Formula: see text] has just a lower limit [Formula: see text] ([Formula: see text]) and [Formula: see text] is constrained to [Formula: see text] in the [Formula: see text] ([Formula: see text]) scenario. In neither case can the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, [Formula: see text], be improved significantly relative to its Standard Model (SM) value, nor do flavour measurements constrain the model significantly, and there are poor prospects for discovering supersymmetric particles at the LHC, though there are some prospects for direct DM detection. On the other hand, if the [Formula: see text] contributes only a fraction of the cold DM density, future LHC [Formula: see text]-based searches for gluinos, squarks and heavier chargino and neutralino states as well as disappearing track searches in the wino-like LSP region will be relevant, and interference effects enable [Formula: see text] to agree with the data better than in the SM in the case of wino-like DM with [Formula: see text].

Beyond the CMSSM without an accelerator: proton decay and direct dark matter detection

We consider two potential non-accelerator signatures of generalizations of the well-studied constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model (CMSSM). In one generalization, the universality constraints on soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters are applied at some input scale [Formula: see text]below the grand unification (GUT) scale [Formula: see text], a scenario referred to as 'sub-GUT'. The other generalization we consider is to retain GUT-scale universality for the squark and slepton masses, but to relax universality for the soft supersymmetry-breaking contributions to the masses of the Higgs doublets. As with other CMSSM-like models, the measured Higgs mass requires supersymmetric particle masses near or beyond the TeV scale. Because of these rather heavy sparticle masses, the embedding of these CMSSM-like models in a minimal SU(5) model of grand unification can yield a proton lifetime consistent with current experimental limits, and may be accessible in existing and future proton decay experiments. Another possible signature of these CMSSM-like models is direct detection of supersymmetric dark matter. The direct dark matter scattering rate is typically below the reach of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment if [Formula: see text] is close to [Formula: see text], but it may lie within its reach if [Formula: see text] GeV. Likewise, generalizing the CMSSM to allow non-universal supersymmetry-breaking contributions to the Higgs offers extensive possibilities for models within reach of the LZ experiment that have long proton lifetimes.