https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-012-2213-9
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Characterising WIMPs at a future e + e − linear collider
1
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607, Hamburg, Germany
2
Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Hamburg, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761, Hamburg, Germany
* e-mail: jenny.list@desy.de
Received:
2
July
2012
Revised:
7
September
2012
Published online:
13
November
2012
We investigate the prospects for detecting and measuring the parameters of WIMP dark matter in a model-independent way at the International Linear Collider. The signal under study is direct WIMP pair production with associated initial state radiation e
+
e
−→χχγ. The analysis accounts for the beam energy spectrum of the ILC and the dominant machine induced backgrounds. The influence of the detector parameters are incorporated by full simulation and event reconstruction within the framework of the ILD detector concept. We show that by using polarised beams, the detection potential is significantly increased by reduction of the dominant SM background of radiative neutrino production 
. The dominant sources of systematic uncertainty are the precision of the polarisation measurement and the shape of the beam energy spectrum. With an integrated luminosity of 
the helicity structure of the interaction involved can be inferred, and the masses and cross sections can be measured with a relative accuracy of the order of 1 %.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg and Società Italiana di Fisica, 2012
