Direct and Indirect Detection of Neutralino Dark Matter and Collider Signatures in an $SO(10)$ Model with Two Intermediate Scales

Abstract

We investigate the detectability of neutralino Dark Matter via direct and indirect searches as well as collider signatures of an $SO(10)$ model with two intermediate scales. We compare the direct Dark Matter detection cross section and the muon flux due to neutralino annihilation in the Sun that we obtain in this model with mSUGRA predictions and with the sensitivity of current and future experiments. In both cases, we find that the detectability improves as the model deviates more from mSUGRA. In order to study collider signatures, we choose two benchmark points that represent the main phenomenological features of the model: a lower value of $|μ|$ and reduced third generation sfermion masses due to extra Yukawa coupling contributions in the Renormalization Group Equations, and increased first and second generation slepton masses due to new gaugino loop contributions. We show that measurements at the LHC can distinguish this model from mSUGRA in both cases, by counting events containing leptonically decaying $Z^0$ bosons, heavy neutral Higgs bosons, or like--sign lepton pairs.