Improving prospects for the direct detection of Higgsino dark matterConfirmed

by Harikrishnan Ramani (University of California, Berkeley)

Friday May 23, 2025, 1:00 p.m. → 2:30 p.m. America/Toronto

PI/4-405 - Bob Room (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)

The pseudo-Dirac Higgsino is one of the last surviving electroweak WIMPs. The LHC will not reach the 1.1 TeV target mass even with full luminosity and prospects for its indirect detection depend on a favorable dark matter density profile at the galactic center. Since it has only off-diagonal couplings at tree-level, its direct detection is possible only when the mass splitting is smaller than the initial center of mass kinetic energy. This direct detection loophole is actually more generic; going by the name 'inelastic dark matter'. In this talk I will talk about my recent efforts to reach mass splittings larger than what has been thought to be possible thus far, by invoking interesting astrophysics, elements from the end of the periodic table, and large volume neutrino detectors.