{"id":"c3c58a62-3291-4078-8406-3b1ad919c2e7","arxiv_id":"2505.03722","paper_version":1,"verdict":"CONDITIONAL","confidence":"MODERATE","novelty_score":4.0,"correctness_risk":"medium","formal_verification":"none","parameter_count":8,"one_line_summary":"In the MSSM, after muon g-2 and dark matter constraints, only bino-like LSPs with wino or slepton coannihilation survive, and a 27 TeV HE-LHC could probe most of the remaining mass range.","lead":"This paper scans minimal supersymmetry (MSSM) parameter space to find scenarios where a bino-like dark matter particle explains both the muon g-2 anomaly and the dark matter density, then simulates how future LHC runs could discover the required wino or slepton partners. A smart generalist should read it because it indicates whether the planned 27 TeV LHC upgrade could actually test the leading supersymmetric explanation of the muon g-2 anomaly and dark matter.","discovery_kind":"extension","skeptic_critique":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","headline":"Central 'must be bino-like' claim depends on the unstated-in-abstract assumption of pure thermal MSSM dark matter; if axions or non-thermal production are admitted, light winos or higgsinos can satisfy both g-2 and the observed relic abundance.","rationale":"The reader's weakest assumption correctly identifies the most load-bearing condition in the argument: the bino-only conclusion requires the neutralino to be the sole DM component produced by standard thermal freeze-out. This is not a hidden flaw—the paper states it explicitly in Sec. 2—but it is a genuine scope limitation that the abstract fails to convey. The paper does not show that light winos or higgsinos are impossible; it shows that they are impossible within a pure thermal, no-extra-component MSSM. That is a legitimate and well-defined framework, and within that framework the analysis appears sound: the scans, constraints, and collider projections are internally consistent, and the use of established tools (MicrOMEGAs, GM2Calc, SModelS, CheckMATE) lends credibility. However, the central claim is overstated in the abstract and conclusions, and the practical implications for LHC searches depend heavily on this assumption. The concrete test I propose would settle the matter quickly: a single wino-like benchmark that satisfies g-2 and gives an underdense thermal relic would demonstrate that the dichotomy dissolves once axions or non-thermal production are permitted. I considered other potential weaknesses—lattice-versus-dispersive g-2, the bino-higgsino well-tempered region, and the exact HL-LHC coverage—but none is as fundamental as the DM-composition assumption, because they affect quantitative details rather than the central claim's logical structure. The reader's conditional verdict is appropriate: the paper is a solid study within its stated assumptions but should be read with those assumptions prominently in mind. I therefore recommend no change to the reader's decision.","tokens_in":16293,"tokens_out":9152,"duration_ms":99526,"concrete_test":"Construct a wino-like LSP benchmark with M2 = 300 GeV, M1 = μ = 3 TeV, m_slepton = 300 GeV, and tanβ = 30. Compute δaµ with GM2Calc and the neutralino relic density Ωχ h² with MicrOMEGAs. If δaµ falls within the 2σ band of Eq. (3.7) and Ωχ h² is well below 0.120 (typically ~0.01 for a 300 GeV wino), then this point is excluded only by the implicit all-DM, thermal assumption; adding an axion component that supplies the remaining relic density makes the scenario viable despite a non-bino LSP. This directly falsifies the 'must be bino-like' claim whenever subdominant or non-thermal DM is admitted.","verdict_should_be":"UNCHANGED","load_bearing_attack":"The paper's central dichotomy—that a bino-like LSP is required to simultaneously explain the muon g-2 excess and the DM relic density—rests on the premise stated in Sec. 2 that this must happen 'without invoking additional non-SUSY components such as axions.' This premise confines the analysis to neutralinos that constitute all of the dark matter via standard thermal freeze-out. The abstract and conclusions drop this qualifier, presenting the bino-only conclusion as unconditional. If the neutralino is instead a subdominant DM component (with axions, for example, supplying the rest) or is produced non-thermally, light wino- or higgsino-like LSPs with masses far below the TeV scale can have an annihilation rate that makes Ωχ h² less than the observed value, while light sleptons and charginos still generate a sufficiently large δaµ. The paper's entire parameter-space selection (LWo/HWo), the derived mass bounds (580 GeV and 430 GeV), and the LHC/HE-LHC reach estimates are all contingent on this thermal-plus-no-axion assumption. The qualifier appears once in Sec. 2 but is not reflected in the abstract's definitive 'must be bino-like' phrasing, making the headline claim easy to over-interpret as a model-independent MSSM conclusion.","agreement_with_reader":"agree"},"referee_report":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","summary":"The paper examines the LHC sensitivity to weak gauginos in the MSSM under the combined constraints from the muon g-2 anomaly, dark matter relic abundance, direct detection, and current LHC searches. The authors argue that, if the neutralino is to explain both g-2 and the full relic density via standard thermal freeze-out, the LSP must be bino-like. They define two scenarios: a light-wino (LWo) scenario with a bino LSP nearly degenerate with a wino-like second neutralino, and a heavy-wino (HWo) scenario with a bino LSP coannihilating with sleptons. Using standard tools (SuSpect, MicrOMEGAs, GM2Calc, SModelS, MadGraph, Pythia, Delphes, CheckMATE), they scan the MSSM parameter space, identify surviving points, and estimate the reach of the HL-LHC and a 27 TeV HE-LHC through cut-based analyses. They conclude that the HL-LHC probes only a fraction of the viable region, while the HE-LHC covers most of it.","tokens_in":16550,"tokens_out":8147,"duration_ms":82251,"significance":"If the results hold, the paper provides a useful, up-to-date phenomenological map of MSSM parameter space consistent with the current g-2 and dark matter constraints, and it quantifies the future collider reach. Its strengths include the use of validated public tools, internally consistent cutflow tables, and a clear separation of the two wino-mass hierarchies. The main limitation is that the headline statements, especially 'the DM candidate must be bino-like' and 'HE-LHC covers most of the parameter space', are stated more strongly than the assumptions and the quantitative analysis warrant. The paper would be a solid JHEP contribution after the reach definition and the scope of the assumptions are made precise.","major_comments":[{"comment":"The abstract's claim that 'the DM candidate in the MSSM must be bino-like' is stronger than the premise used in Sec. 2, where the argument is made 'without invoking additional non-SUSY components such as axions.' The conclusion that wino- or higgsino-like LSPs need TeV masses to avoid underabundance, and hence cannot explain the g-2 anomaly, holds only if the neutralino is required to saturate the Planck relic density through standard thermal freeze-out. If a subdominant neutralino component or non-thermal production is admitted, light wino-like or higgsino-like states with light sleptons can give a large Δa_mu while Ωχ h^2 < ΩDM h^2. Since the parameter-space selection in Sec. 3 and the mass windows quoted from Fig. 2 are derived under this assumption, the bino-only conclusion should be explicitly qualified as conditional on pure thermal neutralino dark matter in the abstract and conclusions.","section":"Abstract and Sec. 2"},{"comment":"The paper never states the significance threshold that defines 'probed', 'covered', or 'discovery potential' at the HL-LHC and HE-LHC. This matters because the quoted benchmark cutflows, when combined with Eq. (4.1) and β=10%, give Z≈2.4 for the LWo benchmark (Table 1: 0.95 fb signal vs 3.96 fb total background at 15 ab^-1) and Z≈3.8 for the HWo benchmark (Table 2: 106.1 ab vs 272.6 ab). If the abstract's 'covering most of the parameter space' claim is based on a 2σ or 3σ criterion, that should be stated explicitly; if it is meant as a 5σ discovery, the two benchmark points themselves do not reach that level. Please specify the threshold and, if needed, revise the reach statements accordingly.","section":"Sec. 4, Eq. (4.1), Tables 1-2, Fig. 7"},{"comment":"The description of how the projected significances in Fig. 7 are obtained for the full set of surviving parameter points is incomplete. The text presents cutflows for one benchmark point per scenario (Tables 1 and 2), but does not state whether the same cut efficiencies are applied to all other points, whether the signal cross sections are recomputed per point, or whether a reweighting procedure is used. Without this information, the coverage claim is not reproducible; please document the method used to translate the benchmark cutflows into significances for all points in Fig. 7.","section":"Sec. 4, Figs. 6-7"}],"minor_comments":[{"comment":"The sentence beginning 'For parameter points not excluded by SModelS, we evaluate their discovery potential...' appears twice verbatim (p.9-10); please remove the duplicate.","section":"Sec. 4"},{"comment":"The relation M1 ≃ M2 in the LWo scenario is not defined quantitatively; please specify how the scan samples the near-degeneracy, e.g., a fixed mass difference or a log-random split around equality.","section":"Eq. (3.1)"},{"comment":"The metastability condition in Eq. (3.6) refers to M_Q3L and M_tR, but the scan ranges for these parameters are only given implicitly through 'all other soft masses fixed at 5 TeV'; please state the exact numerical values used for these parameters.","section":"Sec. 3, Eq. (3.6)"},{"comment":"The terminology alternates between 'discovery potential', 'sensitivity', and 'probed/covered' without specifying whether these correspond to discovery, exclusion, or a particular significance; please harmonize the wording after fixing the threshold definition.","section":"Sec. 4"}],"recommendation":"major_revision","confidential_remarks":"This is a competent phenomenological study that uses standard, validated tools and has internally consistent cutflows. The main work needed is to make the scope of the bino-only assumption explicit in the abstract and conclusions and to state the significance threshold underlying the 'covering most of the parameter space' claim. The reader's stress-test concern about axions/non-thermal production is legitimate but is a scope limitation rather than an internal error; it can be addressed by qualification. The missing detail on how Fig. 7 is produced from the benchmark cutflows is also important for reproducibility. I see no sign of circularity or citation-manipulation concerns; the paper fits the journal's scope."},"author_rebuttal":null,"desk_editor":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","letter":"Quick take: this is a competent, incremental parameter scan, and its central physics message—thermal relic plus the 5.2 sigma g-2 anomaly forces a bino-like LSP in the MSSM—is correct only under the stated no-axion, pure-freeze-out assumption. The abstract presents that conclusion unconditionally, which is my main substantive complaint.\n\nWhat is genuinely useful: they update the electroweakino map with the 2023-25 g-2 results, XENONnT/LZ/PandaX, SModelS v3, and produce concrete HL-LHC vs 27 TeV HE-LHC discovery reach charts for two coannihilation classes (light-wino LWo, heavy-wino/slepton HWo). The toolchain is standard and the cutflow tables look internally consistent. I checked the significance formula and the benchmark cutflows; nothing is obviously cooked. The paper also does a decent job of acknowledging that related scenarios appeared in ref. [58] and others; the novelty is the update plus the future-collider comparison.\n\nSoft spots, in rough order:\n\n1. The abstract and conclusions say HE-LHC covers 'most of the viable parameter space,' but the body says for LWo only a 'significant portion' is probed, and for HWo only wino masses below about 2 TeV are covered. That is a real overstatement and should be fixed before publication.\n\n2. The bino-only dichotomy depends on 'without invoking additional non-SUSY components such as axions' in Sec. 2. That qualifier never makes it into the abstract. If the neutralino is subdominant dark matter or non-thermally produced, light winos or higgsinos can satisfy the relic abundance and still contribute to g-2. The paper is not wrong to restrict to thermal MSSM dark matter, but it should be transparent that the scan is conditional on that choice.\n\n3. They take the 5.2 sigma muon g-2 anomaly at face value, which is fine as a working assumption, but lattice QCD results on HVP still leave some tension. A sentence acknowledging this would be enough; it does not change the scan's internal logic.\n\n4. Small editorial stuff: Sec. 4 begins with a duplicated paragraph, and no code, grids, or benchmark files are shipped. For a phenomenological scan of this type, releasing the surviving parameter points would materially help reproducibility.\n\nThe math, data handling, and citation pattern look solid. I don't see a fatal flaw; the caveats are about framing and transparency. This is a paper for SUSY and future-collider phenomenologists, and it deserves a normal peer-review round. I would send it to a referee, with the expectation of minor-to-moderate revision rather than rejection.","headline":"Solid but incremental MSSM scan; the bino-only conclusion is conditional on unstated thermal/no-axion assumptions, and the HE-LHC 'most' claim oversells the body's own numbers.","tokens_in":17199,"tokens_out":2744,"would_cite":true,"duration_ms":26904,"reading_group":"maybe","serious_thinker":"yes","would_accept_peer_review":true},"rs_alignment":null,"lean_confirmation":null,"pith_extraction":{"msc":[],"pacs":[],"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","headline":"Simultaneously explaining the muon g-2 anomaly and dark matter requires bino-like neutralino dark matter in the MSSM.","keywords":["muon g-2 anomaly","MSSM","neutralino dark matter","bino-like LSP","wino coannihilation","slepton coannihilation","HL-LHC","HE-LHC"],"falsifier":"A confirmed detection of a wino-like or higgsino-like neutralino with mass below roughly a TeV whose thermal relic density matches Planck, or evidence that most dark matter is non-thermal (for example a definitive axion signal carrying the measured abundance), would contradict the paper's central dichotomy and reopen the wino and higgsino windows.","tokens_in":15990,"feed_emoji":"🌌","tokens_out":6078,"duration_ms":57736,"temperature":0.7,"pith_summary":"The paper asks which supersymmetric dark matter candidates can simultaneously explain the 5.2 sigma muon g-2 anomaly and the observed dark matter relic density, and how well the LHC could detect them. It claims that in the MSSM with standard thermal freeze-out, the lightest neutralino must be bino-like, because wino- and higgsino-like neutralinos that give the right relic density need TeV-scale masses and then contribute too little to g-2. Two viable configurations survive: a bino-like LSP coannihilating with a light wino, with LSP mass below about 580 GeV, and a bino-like LSP coannihilating with nearly degenerate sleptons, with LSP mass below about 430 GeV. The paper shows that the high-luminosity LHC probes only part of this parameter space, while a 27 TeV high-energy LHC covers most of it. This matters because it tells experimenters exactly which chargino, neutralino, and slepton mass patterns to look for next.","feed_headline":"Muon g-2 forces SUSY dark matter to be bino-like","feed_subtitle":"Only bino-like dark matter survives both constraints, and the 27 TeV HE-LHC can test most of it.","key_machinery":"The engine of the argument is the MSSM neutralino mass matrix, whose parameters $M_1$ (bino soft mass), $M_2$ (wino soft mass), and $\\mu$ (higgsino mass) determine how much of each gauge eigenstate composes the lightest neutralino. Two formulas carry the quantitative work: the one-loop supersymmetric contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment, dominated by chargino-sneutrino and neutralino-smuon loops and approximated by $\\delta a_\\mu^{\\rm SUSY} \\simeq 14\\tan\\beta\\,(100\\,\\mathrm{GeV}/M_{\\rm SUSY})^2 \\times10^{-10}$, and the thermal freeze-out relic density, which for a nearly pure bino is too large unless coannihilation with a slightly heavier wino or slepton depletes it. The paper's scans use these to identify two compressed-spectrum benchmark classes, LWo and HWo, and then simulate their LHC signals using missing transverse energy and dilepton invariant mass cuts.","core_discovery":"The central discovery is a dichotomy: within the MSSM, no wino-like or higgsino-like neutralino can be both the thermal dark matter and the source of the muon g-2 anomaly. Such candidates annihilate too efficiently, so matching the Planck relic density pushes them to TeV masses, which suppresses their supersymmetric contribution to the muon's anomalous magnetic moment below the observed value of $(2.49\\pm0.48)\\times10^{-9}$. Direct detection also disfavors light higgsinos, which scatter strongly with nucleons through bino-higgsino mixing. The surviving dark matter is therefore a bino-like LSP whose relic density is set by coannihilation either with a nearby wino (the light-wino scenario) or with nearly mass-degenerate sleptons (the heavy-wino scenario). The paper maps these two viable regions and finds that current LHC searches already exclude light-wino points with LSP masses below about 265 GeV, while the HL-LHC could see only a fraction of the remaining points and the HE-LHC at 27 TeV with 15 inverse femtobarns could cover most of them.","pith_inferences":["Beyond the paper: if non-thermal dark matter production or an additional component such as an axion contributes to the relic density, the central dichotomy breaks and light wino- or higgsino-like dark matter becomes viable again, so collider searches for those states remain worth pursuing.","Beyond the paper: the compressed spectra predicted here could also be tested with monojet, initial-state-radiation, and soft-lepton searches that the paper's cut-based analysis does not fully exploit.","Beyond the paper: the mass ordering required by these scenarios implies specific slepton and sneutrino mass relations that a future precision muon collider could measure, providing an independent cross-check of the g-2 explanation.","Beyond the paper: if the 27 TeV HE-LHC runs and finds nothing, the surviving parameter space would be pushed into the most compressed corners, where dedicated searches for small mass splittings would become the decisive test."],"forward_implications":["If the muon g-2 anomaly is real and dark matter is thermal, the MSSM LSP must be bino-like, with the LSP mass below roughly 580 GeV in the light-wino scenario and below roughly 430 GeV in the heavy-wino scenario.","The high-luminosity LHC will probe only part of this viable parameter space, so null results there would not rule out these explanations of g-2.","A 27 TeV high-energy LHC would cover most of the surviving parameter space, especially heavy-wino points with the wino-like second neutralino below about 2 TeV.","The two scenarios have distinct kinematic signatures: light-wino signals concentrate at low dilepton invariant mass, while heavy-wino signals prefer higher invariant masses and larger missing energy, so tailored search strategies are needed.","Direct detection experiments will test only a small fraction of the bino-like parameter space, making the LHC the primary probe of these scenarios."],"supporting_citations":[{"why":"Provides the experimental muon g-2 deviation that defines the anomaly the paper aims to explain.","marker":"[1]"},{"why":"Gives the updated 0.20 ppm measurement and the central value used in the paper's constraints.","marker":"[6]"},{"why":"Establishes the one-loop supersymmetric contributions to the muon anomalous magnetic moment that require light electroweakinos and sleptons.","marker":"[29]"},{"why":"Supplies the detailed chargino-sneutrino and neutralino-smuon loop formulas used for the g-2 calculation.","marker":"[30]"},{"why":"Supports the claim that wino- or higgsino-like neutralinos need TeV-scale masses to match the thermal relic density.","marker":"[63]"},{"why":"Computes the neutralino relic density in the parameter scans, enforcing the Planck dark matter abundance.","marker":"[70]"},{"why":"Provides the two-loop precision calculation of the supersymmetric muon g-2 used in the scans.","marker":"[71]"},{"why":"Imposes existing LHC simplified-model constraints on the scanned supersymmetric spectra.","marker":"[72]"},{"why":"Supplies the observed dark matter relic density that the scans require the LSP to match.","marker":"[85]"},{"why":"The trilepton chargino-neutralino search that gives the strongest current LHC exclusion in the light-wino scenario.","marker":"[94]"}],"fun_headline_variants":["Only bino-like neutralino survives muon g-2 and dark matter","Muon g-2 data forces SUSY DM to be bino-like","Bino-only dark matter: LHC reach at 27 TeV","HE-LHC can test most bino-like LSP scenarios","g-2 anomaly and relic density single out bino LSP"],"cache_read_input_tokens":3200,"weakest_assumption_plain":"The conclusion that dark matter must be bino-like assumes the observed relic density is produced entirely by standard thermal freeze-out of the neutralino, with no extra non-supersymmetric component such as an axion; allow such a component and light winos or higgsinos re-enter as viable candidates.","fun_headline_variants_meta":{"raw":{"variants":["Only bino-like neutralino survives muon g-2 and dark matter","Muon g-2 data forces SUSY DM to be bino-like","Bino-only dark matter: LHC reach at 27 TeV","HE-LHC can test most bino-like LSP scenarios","g-2 anomaly and relic density single out bino LSP"]},"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","effort":"low","cost_usd":0.000693,"raw_usage":{"total_tokens":3211,"prompt_tokens":1098,"completion_tokens":2113,"prompt_tokens_details":{"cached_tokens":384},"prompt_cache_hit_tokens":384,"prompt_cache_miss_tokens":714,"completion_tokens_details":{"reasoning_tokens":2018}},"tokens_in":714,"tokens_out":2113,"duration_ms":13801,"temperature":1.0,"reasoning_tokens":2018,"cache_read_input_tokens":384,"cache_creation_input_tokens":0},"cache_creation_input_tokens":0},"created_at":"2026-08-15T23:44:19.299195+00:00","model_set":{"reader":"deepseek-v4-flash"},"falsifier":"A confirmed detection of a wino-like or higgsino-like neutralino with mass below roughly a TeV whose thermal relic density matches Planck, or evidence that most dark matter is non-thermal (for example a definitive axion signal carrying the measured abundance), would contradict the paper's central dichotomy and reopen the wino and higgsino windows.","supporting_citations":[{"cited_title":"GM2Calc-2 for the 2HDM","cited_arxiv_id":"2207.09039","evidence_quote":"Provides the two-loop precision calculation of the supersymmetric muon g-2 used in the scans."}],"review_version":1}