738 research outputs found
Caring for Older People As a Social Determinant of Health: Findings from a Scoping Review of Observational Studies
Solitonic supersymmetry restoration
Q-balls are a possible feature of any model with a conserved, global U(1)
symmetry and no massless, charged scalars. It is shown that for a broad class
of models of metastable supersymmetry breaking they are extremely influential
on the vacuum lifetime and make seemingly viable vacua catastrophically short
lived. A net charge asymmetry is not required as there is often a significant
range of parameter space where statistical fluctuations alone are sufficient.
This effect is examined for two supersymmetry breaking scenarios. It is found
that models of minimal gauge mediation (which necessarily have a messenger
number U(1)) undergo a rapid, supersymmetry restoring phase transition unless
the messenger mass is greater than 10^8 GeV. Similarly the ISS model, in the
context of direct mediation, quickly decays unless the perturbative
superpotential coupling is greater than the Standard Model gauge couplings.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, minor comments added, accepted for publication
in JHE
Flavor Mediation Delivers Natural SUSY
If supersymmetry (SUSY) solves the hierarchy problem, then naturalness
considerations coupled with recent LHC bounds require non-trivial superpartner
flavor structures. Such "Natural SUSY" models exhibit a large mass hierarchy
between scalars of the third and first two generations as well as degeneracy
(or alignment) among the first two generations. In this work, we show how this
specific beyond the standard model (SM) flavor structure can be tied directly
to SM flavor via "Flavor Mediation". The SM contains an anomaly-free SU(3)
flavor symmetry, broken only by Yukawa couplings. By gauging this flavor
symmetry in addition to SM gauge symmetries, we can mediate SUSY breaking via
(Higgsed) gauge mediation. This automatically delivers a natural SUSY spectrum.
Third-generation scalar masses are suppressed due to the dominant breaking of
the flavor gauge symmetry in the top direction. More subtly, the
first-two-generation scalars remain highly degenerate due to a custodial U(2)
symmetry, where the SU(2) factor arises because SU(3) is rank two. This
custodial symmetry is broken only at order (m_c/m_t)^2. SUSY gauge coupling
unification predictions are preserved, since no new charged matter is
introduced, the SM gauge structure is unaltered, and the flavor symmetry treats
all matter multiplets equally. Moreover, the uniqueness of the anomaly-free
SU(3) flavor group makes possible a number of concrete predictions for the
superpartner spectrum.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables. v2 references added, minor changes to
flavor constraints and a little discussion adde
Supersymmetry in the shadow of photini
Additional neutral gauge fermions -- "photini" -- arise in string
compactifications as superpartners of U(1) gauge fields. Unlike their vector
counterparts, the photini can acquire weak-scale masses from soft SUSY breaking
and lead to observable signatures at the LHC through mass mixing with the bino.
In this work we investigate the collider consequences of adding photini to the
neutralino sector of the MSSM. Relatively large mixing of one or more photini
with the bino can lead to prompt decays of the lightest ordinary supersymmetric
particle; these extra cascades transfer most of the energy of SUSY decay chains
into Standard Model particles, diminishing the power of missing energy as an
experimental handle for signal discrimination. We demonstrate that the missing
energy in SUSY events with photini is reduced dramatically for supersymmetric
spectra with MSSM neutralinos near the weak scale, and study the effects on
limits set by the leading hadronic SUSY searches at ATLAS and CMS. We find that
in the presence of even one light photino the limits on squark masses from
hadronic searches can be reduced by 400 GeV, with comparable (though more
modest) reduction of gluino mass limits. We also consider potential discovery
channels such as dilepton and multilepton searches, which remain sensitive to
SUSY spectra with photini and can provide an unexpected route to the discovery
of supersymmetry. Although presented in the context of photini, our results
apply in general to theories in which additional light neutral fermions mix
with MSSM gauginos.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, references adde
Single-Scale Natural SUSY
We consider the prospects for natural SUSY models consistent with current
data. Recent constraints make the standard paradigm unnatural so we consider
what could be a minimal extension consistent with what we now know. The most
promising such scenarios extend the MSSM with new tree-level Higgs interactions
that can lift its mass to at least 125 GeV and also allow for flavor-dependent
soft terms so that the third generation squarks are lighter than current bounds
on the first and second generation squarks. We argue that a common feature of
almost all such models is the need for a new scale near 10 TeV, such as a scale
of Higgsing or confinement of a new gauge group. We consider the question
whether such a model can naturally derive from a single mass scale associated
with supersymmetry breaking. Most such models simply postulate new scales,
leaving their proximity to the scale of MSSM soft terms a mystery. This
coincidence problem may be thought of as a mild tuning, analogous to the usual
mu problem. We find that a single mass scale origin is challenging, but suggest
that a more natural origin for such a new dynamical scale is the gravitino
mass, m_{3/2}, in theories where the MSSM soft terms are a loop factor below
m_{3/2}. As an example, we build a variant of the NMSSM where the singlet S is
composite, and the strong dynamics leading to compositeness is triggered by
masses of order m_{3/2} for some fields. Our focus is the Higgs sector, but our
model is compatible with a light stop (with the other generation squarks heavy,
or with R-parity violation or another mechanism to hide them from current
searches). All the interesting low-energy mass scales, including linear terms
for S playing a key role in EWSB, arise dynamically from the single scale
m_{3/2}. However, numerical coefficients from RG effects and wavefunction
factors in an extra dimension complicate the otherwise simple story.Comment: 32 pages, 3 figures; version accepted by JHE
Direct Mediation and Metastable Supersymmetry Breaking for SO(10)
We examine a metastable Macroscopic SO(N) SQCD model of
Intriligator, Seiberg and Shih (ISS). We introduce various baryon and meson
deformations, including multitrace operators and explore embedding an SO(10)
parent of the standard model into two weakly gauged flavour sectors. Direct
fundamental messengers and the symmetric pseudo-modulus messenger mediate SUSY
breaking to the MSSM. Gaugino and sfermion masses are computed and compared for
each deformation type. We also explore reducing the rank of the magnetic quark
matrix of the ISS model and find an additional fundamental messenger.Comment: 43 pages, Latex. Version to appear in JHEP
A microscopic theory of gauge mediation
We construct models of indirect gauge mediation where the dynamics
responsible for breaking supersymmetry simultaneously generates a weakly
coupled subsector of messengers. This provides a microscopic realization of
messenger gauge mediation where the messenger and hidden sector fields are
unified into a single sector. The UV theory is SQCD with massless and massive
quarks plus singlets, and at low energies it flows to a weakly coupled quiver
gauge theory. One node provides the primary source of supersymmetry breaking,
which is then transmitted to the node giving rise to the messenger fields.
These models break R-symmetry spontaneously, produce realistic gaugino and
sfermion masses, and give a heavy gravitino.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures, accepted to JHEP for publicatio
The Spectrum of Goldstini and Modulini
When supersymmetry is broken in multiple sectors via independent dynamics,
the theory furnishes a corresponding multiplicity of "goldstini" degrees of
freedom which may play a substantial role in collider phenomenology and
cosmology. In this paper, we explore the tree-level mass spectrum of goldstini
arising from a general admixture of F-term, D-term, and almost no-scale
supersymmetry breaking, employing non-linear superfields and a novel gauge
fixing for supergravity discussed in a companion paper. In theories of F-term
and D-term breaking, goldstini acquire a mass which is precisely twice the
gravitino mass, while the inclusion of no-scale breaking renders one of these
modes, the modulino, massless. We argue that the vanishing modulino mass can be
explained in terms of an accidental and spontaneously broken "global"
supersymmetry.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures; v2: typo corrected, references updated; v3:
version to appear in JHE
(De)Constructing a Natural and Flavorful Supersymmetric Standard Model
Using the framework of deconstruction, we construct simple, weakly-coupled
supersymmetric models that explain the Standard Model flavor hierarchy and
produce a flavorful soft spectrum compatible with precision limits. Electroweak
symmetry breaking is fully natural; the mu-term is dynamically generated with
no B mu-problem and the Higgs mass is easily raised above LEP limits without
reliance on large radiative corrections. These models possess the distinctive
spectrum of superpartners characteristic of "effective supersymmetry": the
third generation superpartners tend to be light, while the rest of the scalars
are heavy.Comment: 36 pages, 4 figures ; v2: references added, expanded discussion of
FCNC
Flavor of quiver-like realizations of effective supersymmetry
We present a class of supersymmetric models which address the flavor puzzle
and have an inverted hierarchy of sfermions. Their construction involves
quiver-like models with link fields in generic representations. The magnitude
of Standard-Model parameters is obtained naturally and a relatively heavy Higgs
boson is allowed without fine tuning. Collider signatures of such models are
possibly within the reach of LHC in the near future.Comment: LaTeX, 17 pages, 3 figures. V2: reference adde
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