2014/04/30 by Peisi Huang, Carlos E. M. Wagner · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.90.015018
published as Phys. Rev. D 90, 015018 (2014) · 25pages, 7 figures, v2:references and one paragraph added, v3: discussion about collider searches added, accepted by PRD
arxiv created 2014/07/01 · openalex publication_date 2014/07/16 · arxiv updated 2014/07/23 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study the spin-independent neutralino dark matter scattering off heavy nuclei in the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model. We identify analytically the blind spots in direct detection for intermediate values of mA. In the region where \ensuremathμ and M1,2 have opposite signs, there is not only a reduction of the lightest CP-even Higgs coupling to neutralinos, but also a destructive interference between the neutralino scattering through the exchange of the lightest CP-even Higgs and that through the exchange of the heaviest CP-even Higgs. At critical values of mA, the tree-level contribution from the light Higgs exchange cancels the contribution from the heavy Higgs, so the scattering cross section vanishes. We denote these configurations as blind spots, since they provide a generalization of the ones previously discussed in the literature, which occur at very large values of mA. We show that the generalized blind spots may occur in regions of parameter space that are consistent with the obtention of the proper neutralino relic density and can be tested by nonstandard Higgs boson searches and EWino searches at the LHC and future linear colliders.