Direct detection of dark matter in the minimal supersymmetric standard model with non-universal Higgs boson masses

We calculate dark matter scattering rates in the minimal supersymmetricextension of the Standard Model (MSSM), allowing the softsupersymmetry-breaking masses of the Higgs multiplets, m_{1,2}, to benon-universal (NUHM). Compared with the constrained MSSM (CMSSM) in whichm_{1,2} are required to be equal to the soft supersymmetry-breaking masses m_0of the squark and slepton masses, we find that the elastic scattering crosssections may be up to two orders of magnitude larger than values in the CMSSMfor similar LSP masses. We find the following preferred ranges for thespin-independent cross section: 10^{-6} pb \ga \sigma_{SI} \ga 10^{-10} pb, andfor the spin-dependent cross section: 10^{-3} pb \ga \sigma_{SD}, with thelower bound on \sigma_{SI} dependent on using the putative constraint from themuon anomalous magnetic moment. We stress the importance of incorporatingaccelerator and dark matter constraints in restricting the NUHM parameterspace, and also of requiring that no undesirable vacuum appear below the GUTscale. In particular, values of the spin-independent cross section anotherorder of magnitude larger would appear to be allowed, for small \tan \beta, ifthe GUT vacuum stability requirement were relaxed, and much lower cross-sectionvalues would be permitted if the muon anomalous magnetic moment constraint weredropped.Comment: 30 pages LaTeX, 40 eps figure