Heavy Sneutrinos as Dark Matter

Abstract

We calculate the relic density of very heavy, stable scalar neutrinos in the minimal supersymmetric standard model. We include all two-body final states, as well as the effects of co-annihilation with scalar electrons. We find that the sneutrino relic density is in the cosmologically interesting region $0.1\ltwid\Omega_{\sn}h^2\ltwid 1.0$ for $550\gev\ltwid\msn\ltwid 2300\gev$. For nominal values of the parameters of our galactic halo, recent results from the Heidelberg--Moscow direct detection experiment set an upper limit on $\Omega_{\sn}$ which is lower by a factor ranging from two to ten, depending on $\msn$.