Dark matter pair production in the MSSM and in simplified dark matter models at the LHC

Abstract

Abstract We study the quantitative features of dark matter pair production at the LHC in simplified dark matter models and in the MSSM taking next-to-leading order QCD corrections and parton-shower effects fully into account. Among the large space of dark matter models, we focus on two particular models where a fermionic dark matter candidate interacts with the Standard Model via the exchange of either a vector mediator in the s-channel or coloured scalar mediators in the t-channel. We find that the simplified models are capable of reproducing the predictions of the MSSM to some extent in simplified supersymmetric scenarios, but lack the complexity to describe the complete theory over the full supersymmetric parameter space.