UC Irvine

In recent work, it has been argued that multi-TeV masses for scalar superpartners are not unnatural. Indeed, they appear to have significant phenomenological virtues. Here we explore the implications of such 'focus point' supersymmetry for the dark matter problem. We find that constraints on relic densities do not place upper bounds on neutralino or scalar masses. We demonstrate that, in the specific context of minimal supergravity, a cosmologically stable mixed gaugino-Higgsino state emerges as an excellent, robust dark matter candidate. We estimate that, over a wide range of the unknown parameters, the spin-independent proton-neutralino cross sections fall in the range accessible to planned search experiments. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V.