The continuously improving sensitivity of dark matter direct detection experiments has limited the interaction between dark matter and nucleons being increasingly feeble, while the dark matter relic density favors it to take part in weak interactions. After taking into account the constraints from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) search for Higgs bosons and sparticles, it is becoming difficult for the neutralino dark matter in the minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model and the next-to-minimal supersymmetric Standard Model to possess these two seemingly paradoxical features in their most natural parameter space for electroweak symmetry breaking due to the limited theoretical structure. In contrast, the seesaw extension of the next-to-minimal supersymmetric Standard Model, which was initially proposed to solve the neutrino mass problem, enables the lightest sneutrino to act as a viable dark matter candidate, readily has these features, and thus, it easily satisfies the constraints from dark matter and LHC experiments. Compared with the Type-I seesaw extension, the dark matter physics in the inverse seesaw extension is more flexible, allowing it to be consistent with the experimental results in broader parameter space. We conclude that weakly interacting massive particles (such as the sneutrino in this study) work well in supersymmetric theories as dark matter candidates.

• Received 3 November 2019
• Accepted 9 March 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.101.075003

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Published by the American Physical Society