Can the supersymmetric flavor problem be solved by decoupling?

Abstract

It has been argued that the squarks and sleptons of the first and second generations can be relatively heavy without destabilizing the weak scale, thereby improving the situation with too-large flavor-changing neutral current (FCNC) and CP violating processes. In theories where the soft supersymmetry breaking parameters are generated at a high scale (such as the Planck scale), we show that such a mass spectrum tends to drive the scalar top mass squared $m_{\tilde{Q}_3}^2$ negative from two-loop renormalization group evolution. Even ignoring CP violation and allowing $O(\lambda) \sim .22$ alignment, the first two generation scalars must be heavier than 22 TeV to suppress FCNC. This in turn requires the boundary condition on $m_{\tilde{Q}_3} > 4 TeV$ to avoid negative $m_{\tilde{Q}_3}^2$ at the weak scale. Some of the models in the literature employing the anomalous U(1) in string theory are excluded by our analysis.