- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine
Access Provided by Xinjiang University

Physical Review D

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access
  • Access by Xinjiang University

Discovery prospects for the Higgsino at the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory’s northern site within the decade

Shotaro Abe1, Tomohiro Inada2,3,1, Emmanuel Moulin4, Nicholas L. Rodd5,6, Benjamin R. Safdi5,6, and Weishuang Linda Xu5,6,7,8

PDF

Phys. Rev. D 114, 023052 – Published 27 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/5qjj-l4b5

Abstract

We demonstrate that Higgsino dark matter (DM) could be discovered within the next few years using the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory’s soon-to-be-operational northern site (CTAO-North). A 1.1 TeV thermal Higgsino is a highly motivated yet untested model of DM. Despite its strong theoretical motivation in supersymmetry and beyond, the Higgsino is notoriously difficult to detect; it lies deep within the neutrino fog of direct detection experiments and could pose a challenge even for a future muon collider. We show that, in contrast, Higgsino detection could be possible within this decade with CTAO-North in La Palma, Spain. The Galactic Center is the region where the dominant DM annihilation signature emerges, but it only barely rises above the horizon at the CTAO-North site. However, we project that this challenge can be overcome with large-zenith-angle observations at the northern site, enabling the conclusive detection of a Higgsino signal by 2030 for a range of DM density profiles in the inner Galaxy.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (88)

  1. J. D. Wells, Implications of supersymmetry breaking with a little hierarchy between gauginos, and scalars, in 11th International Conference on Supersymmetry and the Unification of Fundamental Interactions (2003).
  2. G. F. Giudice and A. Romanino, Split supersymmetry, Nucl. Phys. B699, 65 (2004); B706, 487(E) (2005).
  3. N. Arkani-Hamed and S. Dimopoulos, Supersymmetric unification without low energy supersymmetry and signatures for fine-tuning at the LHC, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2005) 073.
  4. L. J. Hall and Y. Nomura, Spread Supersymmetry, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2012) 082.
  5. A. Arvanitaki, N. Craig, S. Dimopoulos, and G. Villadoro, Mini-Split, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2013) 126.
  6. N. Arkani-Hamed, A. Gupta, D. E. Kaplan, N. Weiner, and T. Zorawski, Simply unnatural supersymmetry, arXiv:1212.6971.
  7. R. T. Co, B. Sheff, and J. D. Wells, Race to find split Higgsino dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 105, 035012 (2022),
  8. S. Bottaro, D. Buttazzo, M. Costa, R. Franceschini, P. Panci, D. Redigolo, and L. Vittorio, The last complex WIMPs standing, Eur. Phys. J. C 82, 992 (2022).
  9. J. Fan and M. Reece, In wino veritas? Indirect searches shed light on neutralino dark matter, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2013) 124.
  10. T. Cohen, M. Lisanti, A. Pierce, and T. R. Slatyer, Wino dark matter under siege, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2013) 061.
  11. L. Rinchiuso, N. L. Rodd, I. Moult, E. Moulin, M. Baumgart, T. Cohen, T. R. Slatyer, I. W. Stewart, and V. Vaidya, Hunting for heavy winos in the galactic center, Phys. Rev. D 98, 123014 (2018),
  12. N. L. Rodd, B. R. Safdi, and W. L. Xu, CTA and SWGO can discover Higgsino dark matter annihilation, Phys. Rev. D 110, 043003 (2024).
  13. M. Cirelli, N. Fornengo, and A. Strumia, Minimal dark matter, Nucl. Phys. B753, 178 (2006).
  14. D. S. Akerib et al., Snowmass2021 Cosmic Frontier Dark Matter Direct Detection to the Neutrino Fog, in Snowmass 2021 (2022).
  15. I. M. Bloch, S. Bottaro, D. Redigolo, and L. Vittorio, Looking for WIMPs through the neutrino fogs, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2025) 216.
  16. M. Low and L.-T. Wang, Neutralino dark matter at 14 TeV and 100 TeV, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2014) 161.
  17. R. Capdevilla, F. Meloni, R. Simoniello, and J. Zurita, Hunting wino and Higgsino dark matter at the muon collider with disappearing tracks, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2021) 133.
  18. C. Accettura et al., Towards a muon collider, Eur. Phys. J. C 83, 864 (2023).
  19. M. Saito, R. Sawada, K. Terashi, and S. Asai, Discovery reach for wino and Higgsino dark matter with a disappearing track signature at a 100 TeV pp collider, Eur. Phys. J. C 79, 469 (2019).
  20. R. K. Ellis et al., Physics briefing book: Input for the European strategy for particle physics update 2020, arXiv:1910.11775.
  21. A. Canepa, T. Han, and X. Wang, The search for electroweakinos, Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 70, 425 (2020).
  22. K. M. Black et al., Muon collider forum report, J. Instrum. 19, T02015 (2024).
  23. H. Fukuda, T. Moroi, A. Niki, and S.-F. Wei, Search for WIMPs at future μ+μ+ colliders, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2024) 214.
  24. R. Franceschini and X. Zhao, Going all the way in the search for WIMP dark matter at the muon collider through precision measurements, Eur. Phys. J. C 83, 552 (2023).
  25. M. Narain et al., The future of US particle physics—the Snowmass 2021 energy frontier report, arXiv:2211.11084.
  26. C. Aime et al., Muon collider physics summary, arXiv:2203.07256.
  27. J. de Blas et al. (Muon Collider Collaboration), The physics case of a 3 TeV muon collider stage, arXiv:2203.07261.
  28. R. Mahbubani, P. Schwaller, and J. Zurita, Closing the window for compressed Dark Sectors with disappearing charged tracks, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2017) 119.
  29. R. Capdevilla, F. Meloni, and J. Zurita, Discovering electroweak interacting dark matter at muon colliders using soft tracks, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 181802 (2025).
  30. A. Delgado and M. Quirós, Higgsino dark matter in the MSSM, Phys. Rev. D 103, 015024 (2021).
  31. G. F. Giudice and A. Romanino, Electric dipole moments in split supersymmetry, Phys. Lett. B 634, 307 (2006).
  32. R. Krall and M. Reece, Last Electroweak WIMP standing: Pseudo-Dirac Higgsino status and compact stars as future probes, Chin. Phys. C 42, 043105 (2018).
  33. C. Cesarotti, Q. Lu, Y. Nakai, A. Parikh, and M. Reece, Interpreting the electron EDM constraint, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2019) 059.
  34. J. Hisano, K. Ishiwata, N. Nagata, and T. Takesako, Direct detection of electroweak-interacting dark matter, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2011) 005.
  35. R. J. Hill and M. P. Solon, WIMP-nucleon scattering with heavy WIMP effective theory, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 211602 (2014).
  36. R. J. Hill and M. P. Solon, Standard Model anatomy of WIMP dark matter direct detection I: Weak-scale matching, Phys. Rev. D 91, 043504 (2015).
  37. R. J. Hill and M. P. Solon, Standard Model anatomy of WIMP dark matter direct detection II: QCD analysis and hadronic matrix elements, Phys. Rev. D 91, 043505 (2015).
  38. Q. Chen and R. J. Hill, Direct detection rate of heavy Higgsino-like and Wino-like dark matter, Phys. Lett. B 804, 135364 (2020).
  39. P. W. Graham, H. Ramani, and S. S. Y. Wong, Enhancing direct detection of Higgsino dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 111, 055030 (2025).
  40. S. P. Martin, Implications of purity constraints on light Higgsinos, Phys. Rev. D 109, 095045 (2024).
  41. T. Han, Z. Liu, L.-T. Wang, and X. Wang, WIMPs at high energy muon colliders, Phys. Rev. D 103, 075004 (2021),
  42. M. Beneke, K. Urban, and M. Vollmann, Matching resummed endpoint and continuum γ-ray spectra from dark-matter annihilation, Phys. Lett. B 834, 137248 (2022).
  43. C. Dessert, J. W. Foster, Y. Park, B. R. Safdi, and W. L. Xu, Higgsino dark matter confronts 14 years of Fermi γ-ray data, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 201001 (2023),
  44. M. Actis et al. (CTA Consortium Collaboration), Design concepts for the Cherenkov Telescope Array CTA: An advanced facility for ground-based high-energy gamma-ray astronomy, Exp. Astron. 32, 193 (2011).
  45. B. S. Acharya et al. (CTA Consortium Collaboration), Science with the Cherenkov Telescope Array, (WSP, 2018), 10.1142/10986.
  46. A. Hussein, L. Necib, M. Kaplinghat, S. Y. Kim, A. Wetzel, J. I. Read, M. P. Rey, and O. Agertz, Theoretical predictions for the inner dark matter distribution in the Milky Way informed by simulations, arXiv:2501.14868.
  47. H. Abe et al., Search for gamma-ray spectral lines from dark matter annihilation up to 100 TeV toward the Galactic Center with MAGIC, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 061002 (2023),
  48. H. Abdallah et al. (HESS Collaboration), Search for γ-ray line signals from dark matter annihilations in the inner Galactic Halo from 10 years of observations with H.E.S.S., Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 201101 (2018),
  49. M. Ackermann et al. (Fermi-LAT Collaboration), Updated search for spectral lines from Galactic dark matter interactions with pass 8 data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope, Phys. Rev. D 91, 122002 (2015).
  50. L. Rinchiuso, O. Macias, E. Moulin, N. L. Rodd, and T. R. Slatyer, Prospects for detecting heavy WIMP dark matter with the Cherenkov Telescope Array: The Wino and Higgsino, Phys. Rev. D 103, 023011 (2021).
  51. https://www.ctao.org/news/the-ctao-becomes-an-eric/.
  52. H. Abe et al. (CTA-LST Project), Observations of the crab nebula and Pulsar with the large-sized telescope prototype of the Cherenkov Telescope Array, Astrophys. J. 956, 80 (2023).
  53. S. Abe et al. (CTAO Collaboration), Dark matter line searches with the Cherenkov Telescope Array, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 07 (2024) 047.
  54. J. Albert et al. (MAGIC Collaboration), Observation of gamma-rays from the galactic center with the magic telescope, Astrophys. J. 638, L101 (2006).
  55. V. A. Acciari et al. (MAGIC Collaboration), MAGIC observations of the diffuse γ-ray emission in the vicinity of the Galactic center, Astron. Astrophys. 642, A190 (2020).
  56. J. Hisano, S. Matsumoto, and M. M. Nojiri, Explosive dark matter annihilation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92 (2004) 031303.
  57. J. Hisano, S. Matsumoto, M. M. Nojiri, and O. Saito, Non-perturbative effect on dark matter annihilation and gamma ray signature from galactic center, Phys. Rev. D 71 (2005) 063528.
  58. M. Cirelli, A. Strumia, and M. Tamburini, Cosmology and astrophysics of minimal dark matter, Nucl. Phys. B787, 152 (2007).
  59. N. Arkani-Hamed, D. P. Finkbeiner, T. R. Slatyer, and N. Weiner, A theory of dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 79, 015014 (2009).
  60. M. Baumgart, I. Z. Rothstein, and V. Vaidya, Calculating the annihilation rate of weakly interacting massive particles, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114 (2015) 211301.
  61. M. Bauer, T. Cohen, R. J. Hill, and M. P. Solon, Soft collinear effective theory for heavy WIMP annihilation, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2015) 099.
  62. G. Ovanesyan, T. R. Slatyer, and I. W. Stewart, Heavy dark matter annihilation from effective field theory, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 211302 (2015).
  63. M. Baumgart, I. Z. Rothstein, and V. Vaidya, Constraints on Galactic wino densities from gamma ray lines, J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2015) 106.
  64. M. Baumgart and V. Vaidya, Semi-inclusive wino and higgsino annihilation to LL, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2016) 213.
  65. G. Ovanesyan, N. L. Rodd, T. R. Slatyer, and I. W. Stewart, One-loop correction to heavy dark matter annihilation, Phys. Rev. D 95, 055001 (2017).
  66. M. Baumgart, T. Cohen, I. Moult, N. L. Rodd, T. R. Slatyer, M. P. Solon, I. W. Stewart, and V. Vaidya, Resummed photon spectra for WIMP annihilation, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2018) 117.
  67. M. Baumgart, T. Cohen, E. Moulin, I. Moult, L. Rinchiuso, N. L. Rodd, T. R. Slatyer, I. W. Stewart, and V. Vaidya, Precision photon spectra for Wino annihilation, J. High Energy Phus. 01 (2019) 036.
  68. M. Beneke, A. Broggio, C. Hasner, and M. Vollmann, Energetic γ-rays from TeV scale dark matter annihilation resummed, Phys. Lett. B 786, 347 (2018).
  69. M. Beneke, A. Broggio, C. Hasner, K. Urban, and M. Vollmann, Resummed photon spectrum from dark matter annihilation for intermediate and narrow energy resolution, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2019) 103.
  70. M. Beneke, S. Lederer, and C. Peset, Electroweak resummation of neutralino dark-matter annihilation into high-energy photons, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2023) 171.
  71. M. Baumgart, N. L. Rodd, T. R. Slatyer, and V. Vaidya, The quintuplet annihilation spectrum, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2024) 158.
  72. M. Cirelli, G. Corcella, A. Hektor, G. Hutsi, M. Kadastik, P. Panci, M. Raidal, F. Sala, and A. Strumia, PPPC 4 DM ID: A poor particle physicist cookbook for dark matter indirect detection, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 03 (2011) 051.
  73. J. Aleksić et al. (MAGIC Collaboration), The major upgrade of the MAGIC telescopes, Part II: A performance study using observations of the Crab Nebula, Astropart. Phys. 72, 76 (2016).
  74. C. T. A. Observatory and C. T. A. Consortium, CTAO instrument response functions—prod5 version v0.1, 10.5281/zenodo.5499840, 2021.
  75. https://www.cta-observatory.org.
  76. C. T. A. Observatory and C. T. A. Consortium, CTAO instrument response functions—prod5 version v0.1, https://zenodo.org/records/5499840, 2021.
  77. M. L. Ahnen et al. (MAGIC Collaboration), Observations of Sagittarius A* during the pericenter passage of the G2 object with MAGIC, Astron. Astrophys. 601, A33 (2017).
  78. C. Fruck, The Galactic Center resolved with MAGIC and a new technique for Atmospheric Calibration, PhD thesis, Munich University of Technology, Germany, Jan., 2015.
  79. A. Montanari, E. Moulin, and N. L. Rodd, Toward the ultimate reach of current imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes and their sensitivity to TeV dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 107, 043028 (2023),
  80. TeVCat, https://www.tevcat.org/.
  81. K. Abe et al. (CTA LST Project), Galactic Center studies with CTA-LST-1, ICRC2023 (2023), p. 574.
  82. J. Einasto, On the construction of a composite model for the Galaxy, and on the determination of the system of Galactic parameters, Tr. Astrofiz. Inst. Alma-Ata 5, 87 (1965).
  83. R. J. J. Grand, F. A. Gómez, F. Marinacci, R. Pakmor, V. Springel, D. J. R. Campbell, C. S. Frenk, A. Jenkins, and S. D. M. White, The Auriga Project: The properties and formation mechanisms of disc galaxies across cosmic time, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 467, 179 (2017).
  84. R. J. J. Grand, F. Fragkoudi, F. A. Gómez, A. Jenkins, F. Marinacci, R. Pakmor, and V. Springel, Overview and public data release of the augmented Auriga Project: Cosmological simulations of dwarf and Milky Way-mass galaxies, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 532, 1814 (2024); 533, 2614(E) (2024).
  85. D. McKeown, J. S. Bullock, F. J. Mercado, Z. Hafen, M. Boylan-Kolchin, A. Wetzel, L. Necib, P. F. Hopkins, and S. Yu, Amplified J-factors in the Galactic Centre for velocity-dependent dark matter annihilation in FIRE simulations, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 513, 55 (2022).
  86. G. Cowan, K. Cranmer, E. Gross, and O. Vitells, Asymptotic formulae for likelihood-based tests of new physics, Eur. Phys. J. C 71, 1554 (2011).
  87. B. R. Safdi, TASI lectures on the particle physics, and astrophysics of dark matter, Proc. Sci. TASI2022 (2024) 009, [arXiv:2303.02169].
  88. L. Bergstrom and P. Ullio, Full one loop calculation of neutralino annihilation into two photons, Nucl. Phys. B504, 27 (1997).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 114, 023052– Published 27 July, 2026
  • Received 27 June 2025
  • Accepted 16 June 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation