The Higgs Sector and CoGeNT/DAMA-Like Dark Matter in Supersymmetric Models

Recent data from CoGeNT and DAMA are roughly consistent with a very light dark matter particle with m\sim 4-10\gev and spin-independent cross section of order \sigma_{SI} \sim (1-3)\times 10^{-4}\pb. An important question is whether these observations are compatible with supersymmetric models obeying $\Omega h^2\sim 0.11$ without violating existing collider constraints and precision measurements. In this talk, I review the fact the the Minimal Supersymmetric Model allows insufficient flexibility to achieve such compatibility, basically because of the highly constrained nature of the MSSM Higgs sector in relation to LEP limits on Higgs bosons. I then outline the manner in which the more flexible Higgs sectors of the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Model and an Extended Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Model allow large $\sigma_{SI}$ and $\Omega h^2\sim 0.11$ at low LSP mass without violating LEP, Tevatron, BaBar and other experimental limits. The relationship of the required Higgs sectors to the NMSSM "ideal-Higgs" scenarios is discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures. To appear in Proceedings of PASCOS 2010. The paper is a compilation of talks given at: PASCOS 2010, ORSAY Workshop on "Higgs Hunting", and SLAC Workshop on "Topologies for Early LHC Searches

Global fits of the dark matter-nucleon effective interactions

The e ective theory of isoscalar dark matter-nucleon interactions mediated by heavy spin-one or spin-zero particles depends on 10 coupling constants besides the dark matter particle mass. Here we compare this 11-dimensional e ective theory to current observations in a comprehensive statistical analysis of several direct detection experiments, including the recent LUX, SuperCDMS and CDMSlite results. From a multidimensional scan with about 3 million likelihood evaluations, we extract the marginalized posterior probability density functions (a Bayesian approach) and the pro le likelihoods (a frequentist approach), as well as the associated credible regions and con dence levels, for each coupling constant vs dark matter mass and for each pair of coupling constants. We compare the Bayesian and frequentist approach in the light of the currently limited amount of data. We nd that current direct detection data contain su cient information to simultaneously constrain not only the familiar spin-independent and spin-dependent interactions, but also the remaining velocity and momentum dependent couplings predicted by the dark matter-nucleon e ective theory. For current experiments associated with a null result, we nd strong correlations between some pairs of coupling constants. For experiments that claim a signal (i.e., CoGeNT and DAMA), we nd that pairs of coupling constants produce degenerate results.peerReviewe