Here be Dragons: The Unexplored Continents of the CMSSM

54 citations (53 excluding self-citations).

The Problem

After the Higgs discovery at 125 GeV, the CMSSM parameter space was severely constrained but not eliminated. Most analyses focused on a few popular benchmark points or scanned limited slices. It was unclear what the full viable territory actually looked like once you simultaneously imposed the measured Higgs mass, the dark matter relic abundance, and existing LHC exclusions. Without a complete map, it was impossible to know whether the 13 TeV LHC could definitively test the CMSSM or whether large unexplored “continents” remained.

The Key Idea

We performed a systematic survey of the full CMSSM parameter space and organized the surviving regions by the dark matter mechanism that sets the relic density: well-tempering, resonant pseudoscalar Higgs annihilation, neutralino-stau coannihilation, and neutralino-stop coannihilation. Each continent has distinct collider signatures at 13 TeV, and we provided benchmark models that characterize them. The key finding was that the parameter space is finite and bounded, meaning a combination of the LHC and planned direct detection experiments could probe it in its entirety. This work was part of the broader search strategies program that included papers like jets plus missing energy searches and tth measurements.

Recollections

[To be added.]

• DOI
• arXiv:1305.2914
• INSPIRE