Theoretical uncertainty of the supersymmetric dark matter relic density from scheme and scale variations

Understand

For particle physics observables at colliders such as the LHC at CERN, it has been common practice for many decades to estimate the theoretical uncertainty by studying the variations of the predicted cross sections with a priori unpredictable scales.

• In astroparticle physics, this has so far not been possible, since most of the observables were calculated at Born level only, so that the renormalization scheme and scale dependence could not be studied in a meaningful way.
• In this paper, we present the first quantitative study of the theoretical uncertainty of the neutralino dark matter relic density from scheme and scale variations.
• We first explain in detail how the renormalization scale enters the tree-level calculations through coupling constants, masses and mixing angles.