Distinguishing supersymmetry from universal extra dimensions or little Higgs models with dark matter experiments

There are compelling reasons to think that new physics will appear at or below the TeV scale. It is not known what form this new physics will take, however. Although The Large Hadron collider is very likely to discover new particles associated with the TeV scale, it may be difficult for it to determine the nature of those particles, whether superpartners, Kaluza-Klein modes or other states. In this article, we consider how direct and indirect dark matter detection experiments may provide information complementary to hadron colliders, which can be used to discriminate between supersymmetry, models with universal extra dimensions, and Little Higgs theories. We find that, in many scenarios, dark matter experiments can be effectively used to distinguish between these possibilities.