Raising the Higgs mass with Yukawa couplings for isotriplets in vector-like extensions of minimal supersymmetry

Extra vector-like matter with both electroweak-singlet masses and large Yukawa couplings can significantly raise the lightest Higgs boson mass in supersymmetry through radiative corrections. I consider models of this type that involve a large Yukawa coupling between weak isotriplet and isodoublet chiral supermultiplets. The particle content can be completed to provide perturbative gauge coupling unification, in several different ways. The impact on precision electroweak observables is shown to be acceptably small, even if the new particles are as light as the current experimental bounds of order 100 GeV. I study the corrections to the lightest Higgs boson mass, and discuss the general features of the collider signatures for the new fermions in these models.Comment: 30 page

The top squark-mediated annihilation scenario and direct detection of dark matter in compressed supersymmetry

Top squark-mediated annihilation of bino-like neutralinos to top-antitop pairs can play the dominant role in obtaining a thermal relic dark matter abundance in agreement with observations. In a previous paper, it was argued that this can occur naturally in models of compressed supersymmetry, which feature a running gluino mass parameter that is substantially smaller than the wino mass parameter at the scale of apparent gauge coupling unification. Here I study in some more detail the parameter space in which this is viable, and compare to other scenarios for obtaining the observed dark matter density. I then study the possibility of detecting the dark matter directly in future experiments. The prospects are consistently very promising for a wide variety of model parameters within this scenario.Comment: 17 pages. v2: additions to figures 4 and

Unravelling an Extra Neutral Gauge Boson at the LHC using Third Generation Fermions

We study the potential to use measurements of extra neutral gauge bosons (Z') properties in pp collisions at the Large Hadron Collider to unravel the underlying physics. We focus on the usefulness of third generation final states (tau, b, t) in distinguishing between models with non-universal Z'-fermion couplings. We present an update of discovery limits of Z's including the 2010-2011 LHC run and include models with non-universal couplings. We show how ratios of sigma(pp -> Z' -> ttbar), sigma(pp -> Z' -> bbbar), and sigma(pp -> Z' -> tau^+tau^-) to sigma(pp -> Z' -> mu^+mu^-) can be used to distinguish between models and measure parameters of the models. Of specific interest are models with preferential couplings, such as models with generation dependent couplings. We also find that forward-backward asymmetry measurements with third generation fermions in the final state could provide important input to understanding the nature of the Z'. Understanding detector resolution and efficiencies will be crucial for extracting results

Using Final State Pseudorapidities to Improve s-channel Resonance Observables at the LHC

We study the use of final state particle pseudorapidity for measurements of s-channel resonances at the LHC. Distinguishing the spin of an s-channel resonance can, in principle, be accomplished using angular distributions in the centre-of-mass frame, possibly using a centre-edge asymmetry measurement, A_CE. In addition, forward-backward asymmetry measurements, A_FB, can be used to distinguish between models of extra neutral gauge bosons. In this note we show how these measurements can be improved by using simple methods based on the pseudorapidity of the final state particles and present the expected results for A_FB and A_CE for several representative models.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; typos fixed, improved visibility of figures for greyscale printin

Three-loop corrections to the lightest Higgs scalar boson mass in supersymmetry

I evaluate the largest three-loop corrections to the mass of the lightest Higgs scalar boson in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model in a mass-independent renormalization scheme, using effective field theory and renormalization group methods. The contributions found here are those that depend only on strong and Yukawa interactions and on the leading and next-to-leading logarithms of the ratio of a typical superpartner mass scale to the top quark mass. The approximation assumes that all superpartners and the other Higgs bosons can be treated as much heavier than the top quark, but does not assume their degeneracy. I also discuss the consistent addition of the three-loop corrections to a complete two-loop calculation.Comment: 9 page

Shift in the LHC Higgs diphoton mass peak from interference with background

The Higgs diphoton amplitude from gluon fusion at the LHC interferes with the continuum background induced by quark loops. I investigate the effect of this interference on the position of the diphoton invariant mass peak used to help determine the Higgs mass. At leading order, the interference shifts the peak towards lower mass by an amount of order 150 MeV or more, with the precise value dependent on the methods used to analyze and fit the data.Comment: 10 pages. v2: comments on scale variation added, reference adde

Refined gluino and squark pole masses beyond leading order

The physical pole and running masses of squarks and gluinos have recently been related at two-loop order in a mass-independent renormalization scheme. I propose a general method for improvement of such formulas, and argue that better accuracy results. The improved version gives an imaginary part of the pole mass that agrees exactly with the direct calculation of the physical width at next-to-leading order. I also find the leading three-loop contributions to the gluino pole mass in the case that squarks are heavier, using effective field theory and renormalization group methods. The efficacy of these improvements for the gluino and squarks is illustrated with numerical examples. Some necessary three-loop results for gauge coupling and fermion mass beta functions and pole masses in theories with more than one type of fermion representation, which are not directly accessible from the published literature, are presented in an Appendix.Comment: 14 pages. v2: typos in equations (A.11), (A.17), and (A.18) fixe

Two-loop scalar self-energies and pole masses in a general renormalizable theory with massless gauge bosons

I present the two-loop self-energy functions for scalar bosons in a general renormalizable theory, within the approximation that vector bosons are treated as massless or equivalently that gauge symmetries are unbroken. This enables the computation of the two-loop physical pole masses of scalar particles in that approximation. The calculations are done simultaneously in the mass-independent \bar{MS}, \bar{DR}, and \bar{DR}' renormalization schemes, and with arbitrary covariant gauge fixing. As an example, I present the two-loop SUSYQCD corrections to squark masses, which can increase the known one-loop results by of order one percent. More generally, it is now straightforward to implement all two-loop sfermion pole mass computations in supersymmetry using the results given here, neglecting only the electroweak vector boson masses compared to the superpartner masses in the two-loop parts.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. v2: typo in eq. (5.30) fixe