The impact of CP-violating phases on DM observables in the cpMSSM

Abstract

In this paper we examine the effect of adding CP-violating phases to the pMSSM on the Dark-Matter (DM) direct-detection cross sections, the velocity-weighted annihilation cross section, and the DM relic density. We show that $\varphi_{M_2}$ and $\varphi_{\mu}$, the phases of the wino and higgsino mass parameters, are sufficiently constrained by electron electric-dipole-moment (EDM) measurements such that the allowed values of these phases are too small to influence these DM observables. Conversely, the phase of the bino-mass parameter $\varphi_{M_1}$ and the phases associated with the trilinear couplings, $\varphi_{A^t}$, $\varphi_{A^b}$, and $\varphi_{A^\tau}$, are barely constrained by EDM experiments. We find that these cpMSSM phases can have an important impact on the mentioned DM observables. This especially concerns pMSSM points that lie on the boundary of exclusion, as observables can be affected by cpMSSM phases to the extent that they are either pushed into the observable region, or outside the excluded region.