Neutralino relic density in minimal supergravity with co-annihilations

Abstract

We evaluate the relic density of neutralinos in the minimal supergravity (mSUGRA) model. All 2 → 2 neutralino annihilation diagrams, as well as all processes involving sleptons, charginos, neutralinos and third generation squarks are included. Relativistic thermal averaging of the velocity times cross sections is performed. We find that co-annihilation effects are only important on the edges of the model parameter space, where some amount of fine-tuning is necessary to obtain a reasonable relic density. Alternatively, at high tan β, annihilation through very broad Higgs resonances gives rise to an acceptable neutralino relic density over broad regions of parameter space where little or no fine-tuning is needed. Finally, we compare our results against the reach of various e+e- and hadron colliders for supersymmetric matter. © SISSA/ISAS 2002.