Dark Matter searches: the nightmare scenario

Abstract

The unfortunate case where the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) fails to discover physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) is sometimes referred to as the ``Nightmare scenario'' of particle physics. We study the consequences of this hypothetical scenario for Dark Matter (DM), in the framework of the constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (cMSSM). We evaluate the surviving regions of the cMSSM parameter space after null searches at the LHC, using several different LHC configurations, and study the consequences for DM searches with ton-scale direct detectors and the IceCube neutrino telescope. We demonstrate that ton-scale direct detection experiments will be able to conclusively probe the cMSSM parameter space that would survive null searches at the LHC with 100 fb−1 of integrated luminosity at 14 TeV. We also demonstrate that IceCube (80 strings plus DeepCore) will be able to probe as much as ≃ 17% of the currently favoured parameter space after 5 years of observation.