Neutralino dark matter confronted by the LHC constraints on electroweak SUSY signals

Abstract

The supersymmetric particles (sparticles) belonging exclusively to the electroweak sector of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) may hold the key to the observed dark matter relic density in the universe even if all strongly interacting sparticles are very heavy. The importance of the light EW sparticles in DM physics and in producing spectacular collider signals is emphasized. It is shown that even the preliminary data on the direct searches of these sparticles at the LHC, significantly constrain the parameter space of the MSSM compatible with the observed relic density and provide useful hints about the future search prospects. If in addition to the electroweak sparticles the gluinos are also within the reach of the LHC experiments, then the gluino mass limits in the light slepton scenario obtained via the canonical jets + $\met$ channel may be relaxed by as much as 25 $%$ compared to the existing limits. But the corresponding same sign dilepton (SSD) + jets + $\met$ signal will yield enhanced limits competitive with the strongest limits currently available. This is illustrated with the help of benchmark scenarios at the generator level using PYTHIA. If the gluinos are just beyond the current reach of the LHC, then the generic n-lepton + m-jets + missing energy signal may discriminate between different DM producing mechanisms by comparing the signals corresponding to different values of n. This is illustrated by simulating the signals for n = 0 and n = 2 (the SSD signal).