Probing dark matter below the neutrino floor through NMSSM Higgs cascade decays at the HL-LHC
Abstract
We investigate the potential of Higgs cascade decays to probe neutralino dark matter below the neutrino floor in the semi-constrained Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model with nonuniversal gaugino masses. We focus on lightest-neutralino masses of 65 to 100 GeV and study the process pp→ H2→ A1A1→γγ+χ̃10χ̃10, where H1 is the observed SM-like Higgs boson, H2 is a heavier CP-even state, and A1 is the lightest CP-odd state. The selected parameter region lies near the A1 resonance, with mA1>2mχ̃10, allowing both resonantly enhanced neutralino annihilation and invisible A1 decays. After imposing theoretical and experimental constraints, we find surviving samples with cascade signal cross sections of approximately 0.16 fb at √s=14 TeV even when their relic-density-rescaled spin-independent scattering cross sections lie below the neutrino floor. A Monte Carlo analysis of a representative benchmark point yields an expected statistical significance of approximately 6.1σ at the high-luminosity LHC with an integrated luminosity of 3000 fb−1, neglecting systematic uncertainties. These results highlight the potential of the diphoton plus missing transverse momentum channel as a complementary probe of neutralino dark matter.
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BibTeX
@misc{dong2026probing,
title = {{Probing dark matter below the neutrino floor through NMSSM Higgs cascade decays at the HL-LHC}},
author = {Yabo Dong and Kun Wang and Haijun Yang and Jingya Zhu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.26545},
eprint = {2609.26545},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.26545},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Probing dark matter below the neutrino floor through NMSSM Higgs cascade decays at the HL-LHC
AU - Yabo Dong
AU - Kun Wang
AU - Haijun Yang
AU - Jingya Zhu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/22
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.26545
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.26545
AB - We investigate the potential of Higgs cascade decays to probe neutralino dark matter below the neutrino floor in the semi-constrained Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model with nonuniversal gaugino masses. We focus on lightest-neutralino masses of 65 to 100 GeV and study the process pp→ H_2→ A_1A_1→γγ+χ̃_1^0χ̃_1^0, where H_1 is the observed SM-like Higgs boson, H_2 is a heavier CP-even state, and A_1 is the lightest CP-odd state. The selected parameter region lies near the A_1 resonance, with m_A_1>2m_χ̃_1^0, allowing both resonantly enhanced neutralino annihilation and invisible A_1 decays. After imposing theoretical and experimental constraints, we find surviving samples with cascade signal cross sections of approximately 0.16 fb at √s=14 TeV even when their relic-density-rescaled spin-independent scattering cross sections lie below the neutrino floor. A Monte Carlo analysis of a representative benchmark point yields an expected statistical significance of approximately 6.1σ at the high-luminosity LHC with an integrated luminosity of 3000 fb^−1, neglecting systematic uncertainties. These results highlight the potential of the diphoton plus missing transverse momentum channel as a complementary probe of neutralino dark matter.
ER -