Can neutralinos in the MSSM and NMSSM scenarios still be light?

Abstract

Since the recent results of direct detection experiments at low mass, many authors have revisited the case of light (1 -10) GeV WIMPs. In particular, there have been a few attempts to explain the results from the DAMA/LIBRA, CDMS and/or CoGeNT experiments by invoking neutralinos lighter than 15 GeV. Here we show that in the MSSM, such light particles are completely ruled out by the TEVATRON limits on the mass of the pseudoscalar Higgs. On the contrary, in the NMSSM, we find that light neutralinos could still be viable candidates. In fact, in some cases, they may even have an elastic scattering cross section on nucleons in the range that is needed to explain either the DAMA/LIBRA, CoGeNT or CDMS recent results. Finally, we revisit the lowest limit on the neutralino mass in the MSSM and find that neutralinos should be heavier than ~28 GeV to evade present experimental bounds.

10p; 12 figures

References in corpus (12)

• Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation
• First results from DAMA/LIBRA and the combined results with DAMA/NaI
• New results from DAMA/LIBRA
• micrOMEGAs2.0: a program to calculate the relic density of dark matter in a generic model
• Estimate of BR(B -> X_s gamma) at O(alpha_s^2)
• First Dark Matter Results from the XENON100 Experiment
• The Astrophysical Uncertainties Of Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments
• Role of h --> eta eta in Intermediate-Mass Higgs Boson Searches at the Large Hadron Collider
• Higgs Signal for h to aa at Hadron Colliders
• Light Neutralinos with Large Scattering Cross Sections in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model
• Clarifying the covariant formalism for the SZ effect due to relativistic non-thermal electrons
• Neutralino Dark Matter and Trilepton Searches in the MSSM

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Results from a Low-Energy Analysis of the CDMS II Germanium Data
• The 125 GeV Higgs in the NMSSM in light of LHC results and astrophysics constraints
• Light mixed sneutrinos as thermal dark matter
• Light Neutralino Dark Matter in the pMSSM: Implications of LEP, LHC and Dark Matter Searches on SUSY Particle Spectra
• Predictive Signatures of Supersymmetry: Measuring the Dark Matter Mass and Gluino Mass with Early LHC data
• A Two-Singlet Model for Light Cold Dark Matter
• Measuring a Light Neutralino Mass at the ILC: Testing the MSSM Neutralino Cold Dark Matter Model
• Regenerating WIMPs in the light of direct and indirect detection
• Probing the Supersymmetric Inflaton and Dark Matter link via the CMB, LHC and XENON1T experiments
• A possible connection between neutrino mass generation and the lightness of a NMSSM pseudoscalar
• Gamma-ray lines constraints in the NMSSM
• Muons from Neutralino Annihilations in the Sun: Flipped SU(5)
• The Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model: an overview