Radiative Corrections to Neutralino and Chargino Masses in the Minimal Supersymmetric Model

We determine the neutralino and chargino masses in the MSSM at one-loop. We perform a Feynman diagram calculation in the on-shell renormalization scheme, including quark/squark and lepton/slepton loops. We find generically the corrections are of order 6%. For a 20 GeV neutralino the corrections can be larger than 20%. The corrections change the region of $\mu,\ M_2,\ \tan\beta$ parameter space which is ruled out by LEP data. We demonstrate that, e.g., for a given $\mu$ and $\tan\beta$ the lower limit on the parameter $M_2$ can shift by 20 GeV.Comment: 11 pages, JHU-TIPAC-930030, PURD-TH-93-13, uses epsf.sty, 6 uuencoded postscript figures, added one sentence and a referenc

Uplifted supersymmetric Higgs region

We show that the parameter space of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model includes a region where the down-type fermion masses are generated by the loop-induced couplings to the up-type Higgs doublet. In this region the down-type Higgs doublet does not acquire a vacuum expectation value at tree level, and has sizable couplings in the superpotential to the tau leptons and bottom quarks. Besides a light standard-like Higgs boson, the Higgs spectrum includes the nearly degenerate states of a heavy spin-0 doublet which can be produced through their couplings to the $b$ quark and decay predominantly into \tau^+\tau^- or \tau\nu.Comment: 14 pages; Signs in Eqns. (3.1) and (4.2) corrected, appendix include

Complete two-loop effective potential approximation to the lightest Higgs scalar boson mass in supersymmetry

I present a method for accurately calculating the pole mass of the lightest Higgs scalar boson in supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model, using a mass-independent renormalization scheme. The Higgs scalar self-energies are approximated by supplementing the exact one-loop results with the second derivatives of the complete two-loop effective potential in Landau gauge. I discuss the dependence of this approximation on the choice of renormalization scale, and note the existence of particularly poor choices which fortunately can be easily identified and avoided. For typical input parameters, the variation in the calculated Higgs mass over a wide range of renormalization scales is found to be of order a few hundred MeV or less, and is significantly improved over previous approximations.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. References added, sample test model parameters listed, minor wording change

Failure time in the fiber-bundle model with thermal noise and disorder

The average time for the onset of macroscopic fractures is analytically and numerically investigated in the fiber-bundle model with quenched disorder and thermal noise under a constant load. We find an implicit exact expression for the failure time in the low-temperature limit that is accurately confirmed by direct simulations. The effect of the disorder is to lower the energy barrier.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

The effect of chirality phenotype and genotype on the fecundity and viability of Partula suturalis and Lymnaea stagnalis: Implications for the evolution of sinistral snails

Why are sinistral snails so rare? Two main hypotheses are that selection acts against the establishment of new coiling morphs, because dextral and sinistral snails have trouble mating, or else a developmental constraint prevents the establishment of sinistrals. We therefore used an isolate of the snail Lymnaea stagnalis, in which sinistrals are rare, and populations of Partula suturalis, in which sinistrals are common, as well as a mathematical model, to understand the circumstances by which new morphs evolve. The main finding is that the sinistral genotype is associated with reduced egg viability in L. stagnalis, but in P. suturalis individuals of sinistral and dextral genotype appear equally fecund, implying a lack of a constraint. As positive frequency-dependent selection against the rare chiral morph in P. suturalis also operates over a narrow range (< 3%), the results suggest a model for chiral evolution in snails in which weak positive frequency-dependent selection may be overcome by a negative frequency-dependent selection, such as reproductive character displacement. In snails, there is not always a developmental constraint. As the direction of cleavage, and thus the directional asymmetry of the entire body, does not generally vary in other Spiralia (annelids, echiurans, vestimentiferans, sipunculids and nemerteans), it remains an open question as to whether this is because of a constraint and/or because most taxa do not have a conspicuous external asymmetry (like a shell) upon which selection can act

Virtual Effects of Split SUSY in Higgs Productions at Linear Colliders

In split supersymmetry the gauginos and higgsinos are the only supersymmetric particles possibly accessible at foreseeable colliders like the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the International Linear Collider (ILC). In order to account for the cosmic dark matter measured by WMAP, these gauginos and higgsinos are stringently constrained and could be explored at the colliders through their direct productions and/or virtual effects in some processes. The clean environment and high luminosity of the ILC render the virtual effects of percent level meaningful in unraveling the new physics effects. In this work we assume split supersymmetry and calculate the virtual effects of the WMAP-allowed gauginos and higgsinos in Higgs productions e+e- -> Z h and e+e- -> \nu_e \bar_\nu_e h through WW fusion at the ILC. We find that the production cross section of e+e- -> Zh can be altered by a few percent in some part of the WMAP-allowed parameter space, while the correction to the WW-fusion process e+e- -> \nu_e \bar_\nu_e h is below 1%. Such virtual effects are correlated with the cross sections of chargino pair productions and can offer complementary information in probing split supersymmetry at the colliders.Comment: more discussions added (7 pages, 10 figs

Production and Two-photon Decay of the MSSM Scalar Higgs Bosons at the LHC

We consider the production and two-photon decay of the $CP$-even Higgs bosons ($h^0$ and $H^0$) of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) at the Large Hadron Collider. We study in detail the dependence of the cross section on various parameters of the MSSM, especially the dependence on the mixing effects in the squark sector due to the Higgs bilinear parameter $\mu$ and the soft supersymmetry breaking parameter $A$. We find that the cross section for the production of these Higgs bosons has a significant dependence on the parameters which determine the chiral mixing in the squark sector. The cross section times the two-photon branching ratio of $h^0$ is of the order of 15--25~fb in much of the parameter space that remains after imposing the present experimental constraints. For the $H^0$ the two-photon branching ratio is only significant if the $H^0$ is light, but then the cross section times the branching ratio may exceed 200~fb. The QCD corrections due to quark loop contributions are known to increase the cross section by 50\%. We find the dependence of the cross section on the gluon distribution function used to be rather insignificant.Comment: 16 pages, LaTex, plus 9 uuencoded figures attached Full ps file available at ftp://vsfys1.fi.uib.no/anonymous/pub/ as nordita-9548.ps or nordita-9548.ps-gz or via http://vsfys1.fi.uib.no/thpubl/publications.htm

The anomalous Higgs-top couplings in the MSSM

The anomalous couplings of the top quark and the Higgs boson has been studied in an effective theory resulting in the framework of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model (MSSM) when the heavy fields are integrated out. Constraints on the parameters of the model from the experimental data on the ratio $R_b={\Gamma(Z\to b\bar{b})/\Gamma(Z\to hadrons)}$ are derived.Comment: Latex, 26 pages + 13 ps figures, final version in PR

Pseudoscalar Higgs boson production associated with a single bottom quark at hadron colliders

We compute the complete next-to-leading order (NLO) SUSY-QCD corrections for the associated production of a pseudoscalar Higgs boson with a bottom quark via bottom-gluon fusion at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Fermilab Tevatron. We find that the NLO QCD correction in the MSSM reaches $40$ at the LHC and $45$ at the Tevatron in our chosen parameter space

Theoretical uncertainties in sparticle mass predictions from computational tools

We estimate the current theoretical uncertainty in sparticle mass predictions by comparing several state-of-the-art computations within the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). We find that the theoretical uncertainty is comparable to the expected statistical errors from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and significantly larger than those expected from a future e+e- Linear Collider (LC). We quantify the theoretical uncertainty on relevant sparticle observables for both LHC and LC, and show that the value of the error is significantly dependent upon the supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking parameters. We also present the theoretical uncertainty induced in fundamental-scale SUSY breaking parameters when they are fitted from LHC measurements. Two regions of the SUSY parameter space where accurate predictions are particularly difficult are examined in detail: the large tan(beta) and focus point regimes.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures; comment added pointing out that 2-loop QCD corrections to mt are incorrect in some of the programs investigated. We give the correct formul