Sensitivity to new supersymmetric thresholds through flavor andCPviolating physics

Abstract

Treating the MSSM as an effective theory below a threshold scale {lambda}, we study the consequences of having dimension-five operators in the superpotential for flavor and CP-violating processes. Below the supersymmetric threshold such terms generate flavor changing and/or CP-odd effective operators of dimension six composed from the standard model fermions, that have the interesting property of decoupling linearly with the threshold scale, i.e. as 1/({lambda}m{sub soft}), where m{sub soft} is the scale of soft supersymmetry breaking. The assumption of weak-scale supersymmetry, together with the stringent limits on electric dipole moments and lepton flavor-violating processes, then provides sensitivity to {lambda} as high as 10{sup 7}-10{sup 9} GeV. We discuss the varying sensitivity to these scales within several MSSM benchmark scenarios and also outline the classes of UV physics which could generate these operators.