Probing GeV-scale MSSM neutralino dark matter in collider and direct detection experiments

Given the recent constraints from the dark matter (DM) direct detections, we examine a light GeV-scale (2-30 GeV) neutralino DM in the alignment limit of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). In this limit without decoupling, the heavy CP-even scalar H plays the role of the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson while the other scalar h can be rather light so that the DM can annihilate through the h resonance or into a pair of h to achieve the observed relic density. With the current collider and cosmological constraints, we find that such a light neutralino DM above 6 GeV can be excluded by the XENON-1T (2017) limits while the survivied parameter space below 6 GeV can be fully tested by the future germanium-based light dark matter detections (such as CDEX), by the Higgs coupling precison measurements or by the production process e(+)e(-) -> h A at an electron-positron collider (Higgs factory). (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.